Tales From Pete's World 10 - Over This, Over That
by SciFiFanForever
Summary: This story is a tribute to one of my favourite authors, Arthur C. Clarke. I first read this story over thirty years ago when I was a student. I was recently reminded of it when I saw a TV adaptation of it. And once again, I thought, "I wonder how it would have turned out if the Doctor and Rose were there?".
1. Girl Power

**Chapter 1**

 **Girl Power**

 **Gwen O'Toole's Apartment.**

 **Bayswater, London.**

It was Wednesday night, and for the last few months it had been a girls night in for the Blue Watch Babes. Originally it had started as a way of introducing Angel to "chick flicks", in a light hearted attempt to educate her in the ways of human female interaction. Being the first alien Special Operations Field Agent, Angel looked to her work colleagues for guidance on how to integrate into society.

Not only did she have bat-like wings and cute, pointed ears which made it obvious that she wasn't human, but also she had a quirky way of speaking which gave her an endearing, childlike innocence. Her Torchwood friends had taken her under their wing and made it their mission to show her what it was to be human.

Joining Gwen "Numbers" O'Toole in her apartment, were Rose "The Wife" Smith, Julia "Van" De Graff, Alice Dimaggio, and Chrissie "Brains" Anderson. A late edition to the "girls night in" was Sarah Green, the girlfriend of Jake Simmonds who was Julia's field partner. Amy "Legs" Williams, had recently joined the Watch, and was obviously invited to these informal and unofficial bonding sessions.

The rules were simple. Each member of the group brought a bottle of wine, a selection of dips and nibbles, and a DVD to enjoy. They would democratically decide which film they would watch, and if it was a hung vote, Angel would close her eyes and pick one at random. They were currently watching "Grease", where John Travolta and Olivia Newton John were singing "Summer Nights".

'Why is it that their recollections of the same event are different?' Angel asked with a frown.

'Ah,' Gwen began as she fumbled for the remote and looked for the pause button through a drunken haze.

'That's because he is a bloke,' she said, pointing at the screen with her wine glass in hand. 'And she's a virgin.'

'I know I'm not a virgin now, but is that how Andre recalls things about us?' Angel enquired.

'Oh no, no, no, no,' Alice said, shaking her head and then staring at the wall wide eyed to get rid of the dizziness. 'Andre is a mature, emotionally well balanced chap . . . A gentleman.'

'Yeah,' the girls said, nodding in agreement. 'A gentleman.'

Gwen found the play button and started the film again.

'Jack's a bloke,' Rose announced out of the blue, trying to think of an example for Angel.

There was a pause as their alcohol hindered brains processed that thought, and then they burst into a fit of alcoholic giggles.

'And Jake,' Julia said laughingly as she thought about her field partner. She then suddenly stopped laughing as she realised that Sarah was sitting on some cushions on the floor next to her.

'Sorry Sarah,' Julia said as she leaned forward to hug her around the neck and plant a kiss on top of her head. 'No offence.'

'None taken,' Sarah laughed. 'He's a Geordie . . . Course he's a bloke!' That elicited another fit of tipsy giggles.

They continued to watch the film, imparting little gems of wisdom to their friend on the way, until they arrived at the part where Sandy "vamped" it up.

'Doesn't she look different,' Angel observed.

'You're telling me,' Chrissie agreed. 'How the hell did she get into those trousers?'

'Apparently, she had to be sewn into them,' Sarah informed them.

'A bit of a bugger if you wanted the toilet,' the ever practical Amy said.

There was another fit of giggles, and then Alice surprised everyone. 'Nice arse though.'

'Alice!?' Rose exclaimed.

'What? She has got a nice arse.'

'I've got chills, they're multiplyin',' Sarah and Rose started singing as the final song started, and when it came to the chorus, Amy told them she had thought of some better words.

'You've the bum that I want,' she sang.

'You've the bum that I want, ooh, ooh ,ooh, honey,' the impromptu chorus responded, and the film ended to raucous laughter filling the apartment.

'So. What about your hen night Angel?' Julia asked as they finished laughing. 'Do you know what you want to do?'

'Ah, well. I have been researching hen parties, and it says they are usually planned by the brides' closest friends, often the maid of honour or bridesmaids,' she quoted. 'So that is you lot. It also says that the festivities can be held in a public place, such as a restaurant or bar, or may be held in a private home or rented room. The location often depends on the amount of exuberance expected of guests. How much exuberance am I expecting?'

'A lot,' Gwen said with a mischievous grin.

'Yes, it said that some celebrations can get quite wild, with frenzied dancing and inappropriate behaviour. Alternately, it suggests a day of drinking champagne at a day spa, but said that would be considered a tame version.'

'Nothing wrong with drinking champagne and being pampered,' said Chrissie.

'Boring!' Gwen said in a sing-song voice.

'Now, now Gwen,' Alice said as the voice of reason. 'This is Angel's do. We have to respect her wishes . . . So, Angel. Loud or quiet?'

Angel sat and thought about her friends, and the kind of night out she would enjoy. She pointed at the TV with her glass. 'I liked all the dancing and singing. Can we do dancing and singing?'

'A "Grease" theme!' Rose exclaimed. 'Brilliant! We could all get dressed up like Sandy at the end of the film.'

'Yeah, and we could all strap on some wings so that we looked like Angel . . .' Amy suggested, waiting to see if anyone thought it was a good idea.

An impish smile spread across Angel's face. 'I love it.'

'We could go to "Fire" in Vauxhall,' Gwen said enthusiastically.

'What's "Fire"?' Amy asked, being new to London, and not knowing the nightclubs.

'We can't take Angel there,' Julia said. 'You'll corrupt the sweet young thing.'

'Yeah, it is a bit wild in there,' Alice said, and then blushed when they all looked at her.

'You've been there?' Rose asked in surprise.

'Er, yeah . . . Research. It was for research into the modification of people's moral conscience by exposure to promiscuous behaviour,' she replied a little too quickly.

Gwen gave her a lopsided smile. 'Right. And did it?'

'Did What?' Alice asked suspiciously.

'Did the exposure to promiscuous behaviour modify your moral conscience?'

Alice gave an embarrassed smile. 'It certainly did Alistairs.'

The girls whooped with laughter.

'It's always the quiet ones,' Chrissie laughed.

'In fact, I think it was that night that I fell pregnant with Lillie,' Alice added.

'Oh that is so sweet,' Rose said, leaning over and giving her a hug and a sloppy, tipsy kiss on the cheek. She turned back to Angel. 'Don't worry Angel, we'll find you somewhere nice to have a hen do to remember.'

 **The Smith's Residence.**

 **Northumberland Place.**

 **Notting Hill, London.**

Around midnight, a shadowy figure tiptoed across the unlit bedroom towards the king sized bed. It was an exaggerated, almost comedic creep.

'Police . . . Freeze!' said a female voice from the doorway to the en suite bathroom. The WPC shone a bright light in the intruder's face, making him screw up his eyes. 'Any sudden moves, and I'll mace ya.'

'Okay. No sudden moves,' the intruder assured her.

'Good. Now turn around and put your hands behind you. I'm arrestin' you for burglary. You do not have to say anythin', but anythin' you say may be taken down and used as evidence,' she said as she secured handcuffs around his wrists.

'In that case, I'll have to say trousers,' the intruder said cheekily. The WPC couldn't help chuckling at that.

'I'll have to do a body search,' she informed her prisoner as she turned him around, put her hands inside his jacket, and ran them down his chest. 'Anythin' in yer pockets?'

'Ooh yeah. Lots of stuff,' he replied, waggling his eyebrows.

'Hmm,' she replied. She stooped down and ran her hands up his legs, stopping at his crotch. 'Anythin' in there I should know about?'

'Er, just an erection.'

'Ooh good,' the WPC said in a sultry voice, and proceeded to unzip his trousers.

'This isn't standard police procedure,' he said in a high voice.

'I ain't a standard police officer,' she replied, as she slipped her hand inside his underpants and massaged the bulge she found there.

'You're telling me!'

'Yes, I am.' She pulled his underpants and trousers down. 'Now, sit on the bed,' she ordered with a mischievous sparkle in her hazel eyes.

As the intruder sat on the edge of the bed, he could just see a hint of her stocking tops and suspenders below the hem of her micro-miniskirt. The non-standard WPC knelt on the bed as she straddled his hips, and lowered herself onto him. She ran her fingers through his unruly, sticky up hair as she proceeded to snog him.

After a few minutes of "jiggling" up and down, the intruder gasped, and the non-standard WPC squeaked as they reached their orgasms. The intruder fell back onto the bed, his hands still handcuffed behind him.

The non-standard WPC leaned forward, grabbed the lapels of his brown pinstriped suit, pulling him into a passionate kiss. She took off her hat, and her blonde locks tumbled over her shoulders.

'Phew!' she breathed. 'I forgot to ask you . . . where did you get this outfit from?'

'It was "Legs". She gave me the address of the theatrical outfitters where she got her kissogram outfits from,' Doctor John Smith, her husband explained. 'And thanks for wearing it.'

'Good old Amy,' Rose giggled. 'And lucky old Rory.'

'Yeah. I can't think why he always looks so gloomy,' he said with a grin.

'Don't worry, I reckon she's gonna put a smile on his face when she takes him to "Fire".'

'Blimey,' John said, remembering their first visit to the uninhibited nightclub. 'Is that where you're taking Angel on her hen night? I'd have thought that was a bit risqué.'

'Gwen was keen, but we agreed on somewhere a bit more mainstream. And we had a brilliant idea of a "Grease" theme, y'know, where she vamps it up at the end.'

'Ooh, I can't wait to see you in that outfit. You'll be the one that I want,' he sang.

'Ooh, (kiss) ooh, (kiss) ooh, (kiss) Rose replied.

'Now then officer Smith, back to business. I presume you'll want to try and extract a confession.'

She gave him a lopsided smile. 'I'm gonna extract somethin' from ya, but it ain't gonna be a confession. Now then, prepare for a severe and extended grilling.'

Whilst they slept, after a very severe, extended and enjoyable grilling, events in the Oort Cloud at the outer limits of the Solar System conspired to postpone Angel's hen night.

* * *

Rikki Stormgren, the Secretary General of the United Nations was sitting in his cold office in the United Nations Secretariat Building located in the Turtle Bay area of Manhattan, in New York City. It was a standing joke that the Secretary General liked living in an icebox. But he found the cold helped him to stay on task, kept his thoughts sharp and focussed.

He was working on the latest annual report to the General Assembly. There were a number of reports from various agencies around the world, on a number of issues. He knew that some of the issues were interconnected, such as regional conflicts that led to atrocities, refugees, and protecting children. It was his job to collate all these reports into one cohesive response.

There was a knock at the door, and his assistant, Pieter Van Ryberg entered.

'What is it Pieter? I am a bit busy.'

'Yes, I know sir. And I'm sorry . . . but there is something happening, something big. It's all over the news.'

'What is? What are you talking about?'

Before Pieter could answer, they heard a sonic boom outside, and the building vibrated.

'What? An earthquake? In New York?' Stormgren asked in disbelief.

His assistant shook his head and nodded at the window. 'No sir, not an earthquake.'

Stormgren stood and went over to the great window, staring down at the crawling traffic on 43rd Street. He sometimes wondered if it was a good thing for any man to work at such an altitude above his fellow humans. Detachment was all very well, but it could change so easily to indifference. Or was he merely trying to rationalize his dislike of skyscrapers, still unabated after twenty years in New York?

There was no evidence of an earthquake, or anything else that could have caused shaking. As Stormgren watched, the crawling traffic came to a chaotic halt as a shadow seemed to fall over the city. It was as though a sudden storm cloud had formed, blocking out the morning sunshine, and he looked up to the sky. 'What was that then . . . a rumble of th . . .'

It wasn't thunder. It wasn't any natural phenomenon. It wasn't anything on Earth. A dark shape moved across the sky, pushing clouds aside as it moved inexorably towards him. It came to rest tweenty miles above the United Nations Headquarters, and once the clouds had drifted away, Stormgren, his assistant, and every New Yorker could clearly see what had arrived.

Their first impression was that it looked like an Atlas moth on steroids. The primary hull was roughly cylindrical, with thick "wings" raised to the sides as though they were ready to flap down. Hundreds of tiny lights could be seen over the shiny structure, and it didn't take much imagination to realise that they were windows. At the rear of the "wings", huge exhaust ports were apparent, presumably to some kind of interstellar engines.

Stormgren reached his mobile phone out of his pocket and speed dialled his wife. 'Emma . . . Yes I know. Now listen. Go get the kids out of school and get out of New York,' he told her. 'Anywhere, just go! I'll meet up with you later.'

He put the phone back in his pocket and looked at Pieter. 'I suggest you do the same.'

'Yeah. I've already sent her a text.'

'Right. Now get me Torchwood on the phone.'

* * *

When a vessel travels faster than light, weird things start to happen. The most noticeable is that the vessel disappears, as photons of light struggle to catch up with it to bounce off it. And of course, the reverse is true when the vessel stops travelling faster than light. Photons of light bounce off it and suddenly, it can be seen. Photons from the sun bounced off forty five vessels as they became slower than light at around one hundred million miles out from planet Earth.

In the Despatch Offices of Torchwood One, London; Torchwood Two, Glasgow; Torchwood Three, Cardiff; Torchwood Four, New Delhi; and Torchwood Five, New York, the red alert status alarms were "bonging" for attention.

At Canary Wharf, Rose Smith left her office and strode across the Standby Room to the Despatch Office. 'Chrissie, what have we got?' she asked Chrissie Anderson, the Senior Technical Operations Officer.

Chrissie was rushing around the "Comms" desk, looking from screen to screen. 'Er, forty five ships suddenly appeared one hundred and fifteen million miles out. They are gravity braking around the sun, losing velocity at an amazing rate.'

'Oooh. I hope they've got inertia compensators or that is gonna hurt,' John said as he wandered into the office with his hands in his pockets. He kissed his wife and then looked at the data on one of the screens, pulling a face. 'They have to be pulling about seven G's.'

Chrissie nodded. 'At this rate of deceleration, they should be hitting the atmosphere in about twelve minutes at Mach five.'

'Eleven minutes, thirty eight seconds,' John corrected.

'Stop showin off,' Rose told him. He waggled his eyebrows and gave her a cheeky grin.

Jack Harkness entered the office and walked over to them. 'Chrissie, open a broad spectrum channel to those ships please.'

Chrissie operated a few controls. 'Channel open.'

'This is Captain Jack Harkness, Director of the Torchwood Institute in London, Great Britain, calling the unidentified ships approaching our planet. Please identify yourselves. Planet of origin. Galactic coordinates. Species designation according to the universal ratification of the Shadow Proclamation.'

'You're getting better at that,' John told him.

'I'm getting plenty of practice these days,' he said, as he waited for a reply.

'No response Jack,' Chrissie told them. 'I'm getting a "ping" back from their antennae, so they are definitely receiving us.'

'Unidentified ships approaching the third planet from the star. This is Captain Jack Harkness, Director of the Torchwood Institute in London, Great Britain. I repeat, please identify yourselves with your planet of origin, galactic coordinates and species designation, according to the universal ratification of the Shadow Proclamation,' Jack repeated.

'Have we got a visual yet?' John asked. Maybe he could identify them from their ship design.

Whilst Chrissie was investigating, the shift supervisor at Torchwood New York, Todd Hunter, appeared on one of the multimedia screens. ['Hi guys. I take it you've seen our unexpected guests.']

'Hiya Todd,' Rose greeted her friend and colleague. 'Yeah, we were just wonderin' if we could get a look at them.'

Todd grinned. ['I'm ahead of you on that one. Quebec are just swinging NEOSSat around to have a look at them. I reckon they qualify as "near Earth objects".']

'And in just over five minutes, they're going to be a bit too near for comfort,' John said.


	2. Arrival

**Chapter 2**

 **Arrival**

All the Torchwood Institutes around the world were anticipating the arrival of forty five unidentified vessels which were approaching at high speed. At Torchwood One in London, everyone in the Communications Hub of the Despatch Office was waiting for the first view of the visitors.

['Ah, here we are. We're getting a live stream from CSA in Quebec,'] Todd announced, and an image appeared on another screen.

The impression they got from the image, was of a group of space moths with their wings raised, ready to flap down to somehow propel themselves through the vacuum of space. They were illuminated by the sun, and shone against the black backdrop of star studded space.

Rose reached for John's hand and intertwined her fingers with his. 'They're beautiful. Surely someone who builds ships like that couldn't be hostile.'

John smiled at her. She was always anthropomorphising aliens and their cultures. 'It may be that a winged configuration make them more efficient at attacking.'

'Oh don't,' she said worriedly. 'D'ya think it could be like the film "Independence Day" though?' She'd only been nine years old when it had first been released in the cinemas. But she'd seen it years later on television in Mickey's flat. That wasn't long before she'd met the Doctor and found out that aliens were for real.

She remembered laughing when she watched it with John on the Movie Channel, and realised that in this universe it starred Idris Elba and Kevin Bacon instead of Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. She still enjoyed finding these inconsistencies between the two universes.

John brought her out of her memories with a laugh. 'What, that sci-fi comedy? Nah. If you have space travel and you want to wipe out the indigenous life forms, all you have to do is collect a three mile wide rock from the asteroid belt and drop it on us.'

'Chrissie. They are still coming to us aren't they?' Jack asked, concerned that John might be right.

'Yes. They are starting to spread out into a configuration that will distribute them around the globe.'

'Unidentified ships approaching the third planet from the star. Once again, this is Captain Jack Harkness, Director of the Torchwood Institute in London, Great Britain. You are not authorised to enter our atmosphere. Change your course now or this will be seen as a hostile act.'

They waited for a response, but it never came. Instead, what came was a series of sonic booms as one of the massive ships pushed its way through the atmosphere over London. An asian face appeared on the screen next to Todd.

['Jack, it's Sanjeev. We have one of those ships approaching New Delhi,'] the director of Torchwood India, Sanjeev Vishwanath told them. ['ISTRAC facilities in Bangalore are tracking more of them heading East towards China, Korea and Japan, and South towards Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand.']

'Goonhilly are tracking multiple targets heading over Europe and Africa,' Chrissie said.

['NORAD have them over Washington and Ottawa, with others moving towards South America,'] Todd added.

'Major cities around the world. Whoever they are, they've done their homework,' John said.

Jack's phone started to ring and he took it out of his pocket. He looked at the caller display and saw it was the president, Harriet Jones. She had recently been re-elected for her third term of office. 'Hi Harriet. I take it you've seen our uninvited guests.'

['Difficult to miss when they are parked directly over the Houses of Parliament,'] she replied. ['What do we know Jack?']

'There are forty five of them over all the major cities around the world. They are ignoring our hails and warnings.' He looked over to John. 'Anything on the scanners?'

John checked the data with Chrissie and shook his head. 'Only what you can see. They have deflector shields which are bouncing our signals.'

Jack went back to the call. 'They're deflecting our scans. Sorry Harrie, that's all we've got at the moment. We'll keep working on it.'

['Do that Jack. I've got a lot of NATO generals wanting to launch a bunch of missiles at them . . . and talking about that, does the institute have anything . . . you know what I mean?']

Jack once again looked at John. 'The president wants to know if we have anything we can use against them if we need to.'

John looked at Rose and back to Jack. 'We've seen another Harriet Jones give that order before. We are not going to see it again.' He had defeated the Sycorax, and they had honoured their champions command (even if their leader hadn't), and left. The Prime Minister, Harriet Jones had given the order for Torchwood in the old universe to destroy the Sycorax ship.

'They've shown no hostile intent so far. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.' Jack ended the call.

'What about the TARDIS?' Jake Simmonds asked from the doorway.

'What, fly one of the most powerful ships in the universe into the heart of a leviathan without knowing their intentions? John said. 'I don't think so. No, the TARDIS will be our ace up our sleeve . . . a last resort.'

'So what do we do then?' Rose asked her husband.

'Well, Chrissie over there is going to keep probing their shields. She's not called "Brains" for nothing. And we, Wife, are going to peep over the fence at the new neighbours. To the bullet lift,' he said in the style of "to the bat-poles".

'Hang on, I'll grab my jacket from the office.' She was just wearing the white blouse, black skirt and boots of her uniform. If they were going to the roof, she'd need the black jacket as well.

As Jack made his way to hold the bullet lift, John stopped off at the equipment lockers to collect a metal briefcase. Rose caught up with him and they entered the lift together. The bullet lift was an express elevator from Special Operations to the roof and travelled so fast, that it built a pressure wave in front of it. Powerful air pumps on the roof sucked air out of the lift shaft to form a partial vacuum to allow a rapid ascent, and pumps in the basement allowed a rapid descent.

The trio stepped out into the roof pyramid, where the sleek, delta wing airship was docked. The pilot and ground crew were in a comfortable, prefabricated hut, where they waited for a call out. Jack asked one of the technicians to open the pyramid so that they could perform some surveillance.

The technician went over to a control desk, pulled up and twisted a lever to lock it in place, and then pulled down a second lever. There was a loud clunk, followed by a low whirring, rumbling sound. Powerful hydraulic rams pushed the triangular "petals" of the pyramid outwards, allowing a breathtaking view over London.

A cool breeze blew across the open roof, as they moved over to the west side of the hangar and looked out over the Thames, past Tower Bridge and the Globe Theatre, to the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben three miles away. On any other day, that would have been an incredible view in itself. Today however, there was another view that stole the show.

'Holy shit!' Captain Lovell, the pilot said, as he came and stood beside them. They were looking at the underside of the moth shaped leviathan which was hanging in the air above Westminster. Wispy clouds hung over, around and under the ship.

'Exactly,' John said as he put down the metal briefcase and reached inside his brown, pinstriped jacket to take out his digital opera glasses.

'Can ya see anythin'?' Rose asked in his ear as she looked over his shoulder.

'Plenty,' he replied. 'But it's what I can't see that's more important.' He handed her the binoculars and stooped down to open the briefcase.

'What am I not seein' then?'

'No visible armaments, no energy discharge ridges, so no death rays,' he said as he took out a small model jet aircraft called a "hawk". It was the larger and faster version of the "spy-fly" surveillance drone.

'No visible manoeuvring thrusters, so they are using some form of inertial manipulators. No visible lifting thrusters, so they are probably using gravity neutralisers.' He switched on the control tablet and flew the drone off the roof and up towards the alien ship above them. 'Let's see if there is anything else we're not seeing.'

The alien ship got larger and larger on the view screen until all they could see was mile after mile of shiny metal until the image blurred momentarily.

'Ah, I've hit the deflector shields. Right, let's do a fly-by and see what we can discover.'

He flew the hawk all around the ship, particularly over the top surface that was hidden from view. The hawk curved over the bulbous "head" of the moth in a lazy arc, and John got a good look into what he presumed was the bridge of the vessel.

'It's empty!' Rose exclaimed.

'Yeah. They might all be having a video conference with the other ships, or they might know that we're snooping around and be shy,' John theorised. 'But, I know the distance from the ship, the view angle and magnification, so when I get downstairs and upload the recording, from the height of the control desks and seats, I can work out how tall they are.'

'What do you reckon the threat level is Doc?' Jack asked.

'Well. There has been no overt show of force, except for invading our airspace when we asked them not to. No obvious weapons . . . This looks like a research vessel, a ship of exploration. The radio silence may be some sort of protocol they are following. So I think Rose was probably right when she said that someone who builds a ship like this couldn't be hostile.'

'I hope you're right,' said Jack.

'Me too,' John said quietly. 'Because if they're not . . . Wellll, they haven't met me yet, have they?'

* * *

'This feels wrong,' Rose said, as the "gull wing" door of the DeLorian swung upwards. 'Leavin' work while that ship is still hangin' over London.' She swung her legs out, stood up, and smoothed down her skirt.

'I know. But it could be ages before anything happens,' John said as he got out of the drivers side.

Rose flipped the seat forward for Juleshka, Eyulf and Jason to climb out in turn. 'I know, but I feel that I should be there, doin' somethin'.'

'Yeah, me too. But we'll all get a call if anything kicks off.'

The kids ran up the steps ahead of their parents and called out a greeting to Donna-The-House as they entered their Notting Hill home. Rickey the Cyber Dog scampered down the hallway excitedly to greet them.

'Afternoon you lot,' Donna replied from one of the many hidden speakers. 'Afternoon John, Rose. What's all this about aliens parkin' their vehicles over capital cities? I hope you're goin' to clamp 'em.'

'I'd prefer it if we could tow them away,' Rose told Donna-The-Robot in the hallway, who was hanging blazers and satchels on the coat hooks.

'Tell ya what,' Donna-The-Robot said with a big grin on her visual interface. 'Give some of our London Traffic Wardens a bunch of helium balloons, and they can float up and slap a parkin' ticket on 'em. That'll have 'em runnin' for the hills.'

They laughed at that thought, and John went to close the door when he heard someone call his name.

'John? We've seen it on the news, you know, all those ships in the sky . . . Is everything all right?' Melissa, their next door neighbour asked. She had been looking out for them to return so that she could get more information on the mysterious space ships.

'Hello Melissa. As far as we know, everything is fine. They don't appear to be hostile, so we just have to wait for them to initiate contact.'

'But what do they want? Why are they just hanging there?'

Rose came to the door and put an arm around John's waist. 'Hi Mel. How's Abby?' she said, trying to reassure her with normal, everyday conversation.

Melissa wasn't expecting a question about her daughter, and it threw her for a moment. 'Er, she's fine thanks.

'Oh thank God you're back,' a man said as he walked up the path towards them. 'We've been worried sick. I've had to make Brendan some camomile tea to calm his nerves. What's going on with these ships in the sky, are they going to eat us?' Justin, their other neighbour asked.

'Eat us?' Melissa almost screamed at Justin. She turned to John and Rose. 'You didn't say they'd come to eat us.'

John rolled his eyes in frustration. 'Look. Nobody is going to eat anybody! Right?'

'But Justin said . . .'

'How do you know . .?' Justin interrupted. 'They did in that show "V" that was on the telly years ago.'

'Oh yes. Those green lizards disguised as humans,' Melissa remembered.

John was incredulous. 'But that was TV. This . . . this is real life.'

'But you don't know for certain, do you? It said on the news . . .'

'Ah, ah, ah. Fingers on lips,' John said, putting his finger on his lips. He'd had enough. He looked to Rose to put a finger on her lips, and then gave his neighbours a stern look. Melissa and Justin looked at each other uncertainly and then put a finger on their lips.

'That's better. Now, what you see on the news, is what we know,' John told them, which wasn't entirely true. Looking at the seats on the bridge, they now knew that the alien visitors were around eight feet tall. And from the layout of the controls on the desk, John reckoned that they had more than five fingers.

'Jack Harkness is in contact with the president, so as soon as we know anything, the president will know, and she will inform the press.'

Rose could see that they weren't convinced. 'Look, if there was any danger, would we have brought our kids home?'

Melissa and Justin looked at each other. She had a point.

'No. We'd have taken them with us to the government bunker where we could coordinate a response to any threat . . . Wouldn't we?'

['Oh nicely done. Brilliant,'] John thought to her.

'Yes, I suppose you would,' Melissa agreed.

'Sorry,' Justin added sheepishly.

John nodded an acceptance of the apology. 'Okay. Now if there are any developments that require action, you will be the first to know . . . We promise.'

'That's very kind of you,' Melissa said. 'Thank you . . . Sorry.'

A pair of green eyes, which had watched the interaction with interest from across the street, continued to watch as the neighbours said their goodbyes and went to their houses. The eyes waited for the Smiths to turn around and enter their own house, before moving off down the street.

A few streets away, a small group moved stealthily along a path, behind the row of terraced houses, towards a small wooden shed at the bottom of the garden. They knew that the occupants of the house were in the front room, and so would not notice them as they made their way inside the shed.

'There was a time when our ancestors would have convened a meeting in a temple, with stone columns, wall paintings and statues which honoured us,' Astrophé said with a sigh of resignation as she looked around the shed. Instead of stone columns, there were rakes, spades and garden forks. There were no wall paintings, only a flip-down calendar with the dates of when various vegetables had been planted.

She gave a single laugh at the statue which tried it's best to honour them. A garden gnome smiled at them with pale, faded lips and lifeless eyes. His fishing rod long since gone, and his chipped nose alluring to a lifetime of watching over fish in a pond which was no longer there. 'We would have been revered as gods. And now where do we meet? A shed.'

'We all share the memories of our ancestors Astrophé, that is why we are here,' Alogue told the small group. 'Where we meet is not important, although this location does have certain advantages.'

'Really, and what would that be?' One of the group asked.

'I will come to that later. Firstly, are we all agreed that these ships are the ones that our ancestors have seen in other skies?'

'Yes, we see them as the ancestors saw them,' the group agreed.

'And are we agreed that when those ships left, those skies no longer existed.'

'But our people have lived here for thousands of years, must we now find a way to leave, or do we suffer the fate of those on the other worlds?' one of the group asked.

'Let us not be too hasty. This world has something the others did not. The Torchwood Institute. This institute has demonstrated time and again that it has the skills and technology to deal with aliens, friendly and hostile.'

'And how would WE make contact with Torchwood?' Astrophé asked.

Another voiced his concerns. 'All this time we've gone about our business unnoticed. If we make contact, there will be no going back. The world will know of us.'

Alogue nodded. 'You are correct, Atonic. However, that brings me to the reason of why I brought you to this garden. There is one man I have heard of who may be receptive to us. He lives nearby, and is a scientist who seems to have integrity and an intelligence which is beyond this planet. I believe that for the information we can share, he will maintain our anonymity.'

'That's a hell of a risk,' Atonic told him. 'What makes you think that we can trust him?'

'He reluctantly came to public attention when he married the daughter of the then director of the Torchwood Institute.'

'You mean that nice couple, Doctor Smith and his lovely wife Rose,' Astrophé realised.

'That's right. And since then, I have followed his career with interest. He has been a champion for this world on many occasions, and yet he shuns any praise or publicity. Are these the actions of a man who would betray us?'

'They may be the actions of a man who has something to hide. A man with secrets . . . a man who wants to hide his shame,' another theorised.

'Perhaps, perhaps not,' said Astrophé thoughtfully. 'But I counsel caution in our approach. It would be unwise to show our hand all at once.'

'Of course. I will make the initial contact and see if he is responsive,' Alogue said.

'Agreed. Be careful, and we will meet again when you have some information for us.'

Alogue nodded. 'I will leave a message in the usual place.' He went to the door and peeped out into the garden. 'All clear. Let's go.'

He led the group back along the path, past the end terrace house and out onto the street. As the group split up and went their separate ways, Alogue made his way towards Northumberland Terrace.


	3. Keep Calm and Carry On

**Chapter 3**

 **Keep Calm and Carry On**

'Any news on these ships in the sky yet?' Jackie asked her daughter and son-in-law as they walked into the living room at Tyler Mansion. It had been another normal day at Torchwood, even with the alien ships in the sky.

'No Mum. There's still no contact,' Rose said, as she stooped down and lifted Jason into a hug.

'I told her that,' Pete said from his armchair. 'I've been monitoring the bulletin boards in my office.' The former director of Torchwood still had his login to the Torchwood server.

'It gives me the creeps,' Jackie said with a shudder. 'It's like them sycophants in the old universe, when you did that changin' trick.'

'Sycorax,' John corrected her as he got down on the floor to play with Eyulf and Juleshka.

'That's them. And look at the trouble they caused.'

'Yeah Mum, but they actually made contact and told us they were bad guys. And gettin' people to stand on the rooftops was a bit of a give away weren't it.'

'That's what I mean. Not sayin' or doin' anythin' is worse,' Jackie said.

'I think they're cool,' Eyulf said. He wasn't worried because he knew that if they were a problem, his parents would sort it. After all, the ships had been in the skies since yesterday and nothing had happened.

After a quick cup of tea at the mansion, the Smiths made their way home to try and have another normal evening with their children as they had done the day before. Whilst the children watched their favourite programs, their parents kept an eye on the Torchwood bulletin boards on their tablets.

Their children were aware that something was "going down", when their grandparents were asking their parents all about the ships that had appeared in the sky. They weren't afraid though, because they'd got something other kids hadn't got. They'd got John and Rose Smith as parents, and they could fix anything.

And so, the evening passed normally, and in their normal routine, the children eventually went to bed. John and Rose settled down on the sofa, and switched on a twenty-four hour news channel. As were all the news channels, it was showing live footage of the ships floating effortlessly above cities around the world. They knew more from their Torchwood tablets than the reporters in the field.

What the bulletin boards didn't show, were the crowds of people who were gathering below the ships. Some were in party mood, celebrating the arrival of the saviours of the Earth, expecting them to cure all of mankind's woes. Others were more pragmatic, curious as to who these visitors were and what their motives were. And of course, there were the doom sayers, proclaiming that the end of the world was nigh.

Some governments in the more strict political regimes, had declared martial law and curfews to prevent civil unrest and rioting which usually followed times of uncertainty. Other cities had cordoned off the areas underneath the ships, and allocated open areas where people could gather and be easily policed.

It was around ten o'clock at night when the Torchwood bulletin board went to condition red, whilst the news channels were still blissfully unaware of an incident in China. John reached for his tablet as it "bonged" for his attention.

'What is it Love?' Rose asked as she reached her own tablet off the low table.

'Oh SHIT!' he exclaimed as he read the alert. 'There's a missile heading west from somewhere in the Pacific ocean.'

'Oh God no,' Rose said with dread. 'Is this it? Is this how it ends?'

'Typical bloody human response. Anything they don't understand or are afraid of, they attack it.'

'Oi! That's my species you're dissin',' Rose said with some irritation.

John looked at her and realised he was generalising a very varied and amazing species. 'Sorry . . . Present company excepted of course.' He reached around her shoulders and pulled her into a kiss.

'Apology accepted. So who's behind it then?'

'Well. It doesn't take a genius to work out it's from a submarine, and that means no one is going to be able to prove who fired it,' John reasoned.

'And where's it headin'?'

'Satellite tracking has its final destination as Beijing.'

'But if it hits the ship over Beijing, it'll fall on the city. Millions of people will be killed!'

'Yeah,' John said with a sad resignation.

'Bloody stupid humans,' said Rose.

They watched the red missile icon flash it's way over Kumamoto, Japan, Jeonbuk in South Korea, before leaving a trail of red dots over the Yellow Sea. The icon flashed over Beijing briefly before disappearing.

'Oh those poor people,' Rose whispered.

John frowned at the display. 'Maybe not. None of the satellite or ground based sensors are registering any release of energy.'

'What. You mean it didn't explode?'

'It looks like it. They must have something like extrapolator shielding. No wonder they don't need armaments.'

The news channel on the television announced some breaking news. ['We are going live to our correspondent, Glen Oglaza in China for some breaking news.']

A young man in a padded jacket appeared on the screen. He looked as though he had been asleep and suddenly woken up. ['A few minutes ago, soldiers from the Red Army who have cordoned off Tiananmen Square, started to mobilise and started shouting orders to evacuate. We then saw a rocket trail burn across the sky from the east and an object appeared to drop onto the alien ship. Fortunately, the warhead did not explode. Had it done, thousands, if not millions of people would have been killed. We can only speculate where the missile came from, and why it failed to explode. It may be that if it was an unauthorised launch, the warhead may not have been armed. If it was an attempt to provoke a reaction from the alien ship, it appears to have failed. This is Glen Oglaza for Twenty-Four Hour News in Beijing.']

 **Torchwood Special Operations Standby Room.**

 **Torchwood Tower, Canary Wharf.**

 **08:00.**

'Okay team. Settle down and lend me your ears for more wonderful weirdness,' said Rose, as she started the day's briefing. 'You've all probably heard about the developments overnight in China. It doesn't seem to have provoked any reaction from the aliens, which is more than can be said for NATO and the United Nations.'

'Was that missile a dud, or did the aliens neutralise it?' Stuart "Irish" Sinclair asked.

'As far as we can tell, it was a viable weapon,' Rose replied. 'Now we've got extra telecoms staff on duty today as we're expecting an increase in calls from members of the public who are worried, concerned, or just plain crazy.'

'So you reckon the worried and concerned will phone today then?' Jake asked with a cheeky grin.

Rose laughed with the rest of the Watch. 'Maybe a couple of 'em. But don't forget, John says that a lot of paranoid delusionals are actually low level telepaths who are picking up signals from people who are on the same wavelength. We'll need to check all calls, no matter how outrageous. Some of them may be tapping into our visitors upstairs.'

She referred to her tablet. 'Now, item one. The social media search bot has picked up a lot of traffic about cats behaving oddly, y'know, like when there's goin' to be an earthquake or somethin'. "Numbers" and "Ace", I'd like you to take the new recruits and see what you can find out. If they are tapping into the alien network, we might be able to use that.'

The new recruits were Amy "Legs" Pond and "Other" Craig Owens. They had completed their orientation in the Despatch Office, and were now being paired up with experienced agents in the field.

Craig gave a lopsided smile. 'This is a wind-up, isn't it. Y'know, one of those initiation rites, yeah?'

Amy nodded. 'Yeah. I mean, who in their right mind would try and interview a cat?'

'She's got a point there,' John said as he breezed into the Standby Room with a grin on his face. 'You never get a straight answer from a cat. All devious and secretive . . . Now a dog! That's a different story. They'd give you their PIN number for a biscuit . . . if they'd got a PIN number of course. Offer to throw a ball for them and they'd try and tell you the answer to life, the universe and everything.'

Rose gave him a "look". 'Thank you for that Doctor Smith.' She turned to Amy and Craig. 'Take no notice of him . . . I don't. The Animal Behaviour guys in Zoology have a pro forma of questions for the owners, animal species, type of behaviour change, when that behaviour changed, stuff like that.'

'Oh, I see,' Amy and Craig said, nodding in understanding.

'Item two . . .' Rose continued the briefing, and the day proceeded normally. Well, as normally as it could with a huge, moth shaped alien spaceship hovering over their heads. Torchwood was on amber alert because of the incident with the missile, but it seemed to have been ignored by the visitors. In fact, no one could decide what had happened to the missile.

The aliens took no action against those responsible, or even indicated that they had known of the attack. They ignored the incident contemptuously, leaving mankind to worry over a vengeance that never came. It was a more effective, and more demoralizing, treatment than any punitive action could have been.

The weekend came, and Saturday was the day John and Rose did the weekly shop, and spent quality time with their children. They would take them to do some exciting activities, such as ice skating, go-karting, or Lazerquest, or meet up with some friends to play in the local park. In the transdimensional extension of their house, they would mess around in the playroom. Juleshka had shown a talent for gymnastics, and Rose would teach her some moves in their basement gym next to the pool.

Sunday was a welcome lie in for John and Rose. He was spooning his wife, his left arm gently embracing her as he cupped one of her breasts. She stirred and looked back over her shoulder. 'Mornin',' she whispered sleepily. He kissed her bare shoulder, returning the greeting.

She gently rolled on to her back lifting her left leg over John's waist. His erection found its way inside her and with gentle contractions of her pelvic floor she caressed the welcome visitor inside her. John made slow easy movements with his hips in response, slowly bringing her to her climax.

She gasped and sighed as he pushed all her buttons. 'Mmmm. Phew, that was lovely. Thank you.'

He kissed her shoulder again. 'You're welcome,' he said as he was about to withdraw from inside her.

'Don't go. It feels nice,' she told him, pulling him back with her leg. 'This still feels wrong y'know.'

'I don't know, it felt okay to me,' he said cheekily.

'No, not that,' she smiled, giving his trouser snake a squeeze with her pelvic muscles. 'Doin' all this normal stuff when those ships are just hangin' there in the sky.'

'Yeah, I know. But we have to wait for them to make the first move, so we might as well just get on with our lives.'

'Hmmm. Okay. So, are ya gonna get on with it then?' she said cheekily, and started to contract her pelvic muscles again.

'Ooh, definitely,' he replied with a waggle of his eyebrows.

Later that morning, Rose was in the kitchen, preparing the Sunday lunch with Donna-the-Robot. Donna-the-House was playing the radio through her hidden speakers, and "Hot Stuff" by Donna Summer started playing.

'Lookin' for some hot stuff, baby this evenin',' Rose started singing, and was reminded of the DVD "The Full Monty" she had watched recently at a girls night in. She started doing the Dole queue pelvic thrust dance. 'I need some hot stuff, baby tonight.'

'Ha, "The Full Monty".' Donna-the-Robot said, and started to join in. 'I want some hot stuff, baby this evenin'.' They did their pelvic thrusts together and started laughing.

['Gotta have some hot stuff,'] the radio sang out, and they raised their arms and bumped their hips together. ['Gotta have some love tonight.']

'Bravo,' John applauded from the doorway.

Rose squealed a laugh when she saw him watching. 'Come and join in if you want. Tell you what, you can do "You Can Keep Your Hat On" tonight if ya like,' she said with a flirty smile.

'If you'll keep yours on, WPC Smith,' he said with a waggle of his eyebrows and a cheeky smile.

And so, people around the world got on with their lives, and became accustomed to a bunch of alien ships hanging over their cities. All except for Torchwood that is. The Torchwood Institutes around the world were constantly monitoring the ships and investigating anything that could indicate what the aliens were up to.

On Tuesday morning, someone named Karellen, calling himself Supervisor for Earth, made himself known to the world in a broadcast that blanketed every radio frequency. Television screens showed the ship hovering over New York, rather than the person who was speaking. He spoke in English so perfect that it sparked controversy on social media and in academic establishments.

But the context of the speech was more staggering even than its delivery. By any standards, it was a work of superlative genius, showing a complete and absolute mastery of human affairs. There could be no doubt that its scholarship and virtuosity, its tantalizing glimpses of knowledge still untapped were deliberately designed to convince mankind that it was in the presence of overwhelming intellectual power.

However, John Smith, the Doctor, wasn't strictly speaking, of mankind. He did concede that the speech was well crafted and well conceived; but when it came to overwhelming intellectual power . . . well, they hadn't met him yet, had they?

When Karellen had finished, the nations of Earth knew that their days of precarious sovereignty had ended. Local, internal governments would still retain their powers, but in the wider field of international affairs the supreme decisions had passed from human hands. In the morning, a shuttle would land in front of the United Nations Secretariat Building to take the Secretary General of the United Nations to meet with Karellen.

'Well, that told us!' John said with raised eyebrows. 'Who ever this Karellen is, he's almost as clever as me.'

'Who the hell does he think he is?' Jake asked with a hint of indignation.

John crossed his arms and pulled a face. 'He thinks he's the new ruler of planet Earth.'

'Can we stop them?' Jack asked as his mobile phone started ringing.

John answered him with a question of his own. 'Stop them doing what? This Karellen says they want to help us by stopping us from killing each other; by saving the environment and banishing hunger and poverty.'

Rose looked flabbergasted. 'Don't tell me you approve of them takin' control of our planet.'

'Why not?' he replied with a deadpan expression, but he couldn't keep it up. A mischievous grin spread across his face. 'Nah, of course not. If anyone was going to do that, it would have been me. But you have to let people do these things for themselves, learn from their mistakes and develop society naturally.'

Jack was answering his phone as they spoke. 'Yes Harrie, we saw the transmission. Our team are on it . . . I'll call you when we know more.' He ended the call and looked at the expectant faces in the room. 'That was the president. She wants some answers.'

'So do I,' John said. 'Who are these guys? Why are they here? What do they want?'

'Good questions Doc. I want department heads in the meeting room in ten minutes for a brainstorming session.'

Ten minutes later, heads of the various departments in Torchwood were sitting around a large table in the meeting room. Jack Harkness was chairing the meeting.

'So what do we know so far, and what can we infer?'

The head of Special Operations, Andy McNabb spoke first. 'From a military perspective, the arrival of the aliens was a classic example of intimidation by a show of superior force. They were inviting that missile launch at Beijing to show their invulnerability. While the planet was distracted by looking up, a covert military force could have been infiltrating key strategic installations all over the planet.'

'Do we have any evidence of infiltration?' Jack asked worriedly.

Chrissie Anderson answered as head of Technical Operations. 'When Andy suggested an aggressive force would take out power, communications and transport hubs, we started monitoring power stations, satellite installations, transmitter masts, road and rail networks, and airports. So far, we've seen nothing out of the ordinary.'

A young man in overalls from the Engineering Department spoke next. 'Each ship could hold a substantial assault force. They have an area of five square kilometres. Assuming a lightweight titanium type alloy, we estimate a mass of around one thousand metric tonnes.'

John spoke next. 'No obvious armaments, although that doesn't mean they can't have extendible particle beam weapons or missile launchers hidden behind panels.'

'That's reassuring,' Jack said sarcastically.

'However, from my experience, it seems to be a scientific vessel. From the bridge layout, I estimate their height at around eight feet, and the controls appear to be configured for someone with more than five fingers.'

Having seen that John had finished, Jack looked to Chrissie. 'Any progress on looking through their defences?'

'The energy shield they use to protect the ship from space debris in flight, and as a heat shield when entering an atmosphere, reflects a lot of the electromagnetic spectrum. It seems they only want visible light to pass through.'

'That figures,' Andy said. 'No point having an intimidating superior force if no one can see it.'

'I agree,' Alice Dimaggio said. 'Whoever these people are, they are experienced in human psychology. They arrive unannounced and position themselves in plain view with no hint of their intention. Are they here to help us, or harm us? Instead of answering that question, they completely ignore us. We are insignificant in the grand scheme of things.'

'And now, we think we know what that grand scheme is,' Andy said sceptically.

Alice continued. 'We think the speech was written by a committee of writers, and this Karellen's delivery was perfect. It was reminiscent of Lincoln's Gettysburg address, with some Winston Churchill, J.F Kennedy and Martin Luther King thrown in for good effect. The message cleverly contained something for everybody, and people remember the part that appealed to them.'

'And did anyone else spot the unspoken information hidden in the message?' John enquired.

'What information?' Jack asked.

'These guys aren't in charge. Karellen called himself Supervisor for Earth, which infers that there are supervisors of other planets,' John reasoned. 'They're long lived, very long lived. The plans they've got for mankind, whatever they ultimately are, will stretch over generations.'

Alice nodded as she realised he was right. 'Of course. They want our children to grow up never knowing a time when those ships haven't been there. They will see them as a benign presence who stopped the world from fighting and starving. They want us to be happy. They want the species to survive.'

'Yes, but they don't want it to progress,' John said. 'Chrissie, do you know how a Torchwood scanner works?'

'Yes, of course,' she answered, slightly puzzled by the question.

'How do you know? They are based on alien technology.'

'Because we took the original apart and worked out what it was and how it worked. And then we built our own version,' she said with a hint of pride.

John gave her a big grin. 'Of course you did you clever human. But what if you had been given one and told what it was and how to use it. Would you have bothered to find out how it actually worked?'

'Well, I myself probably would, yes. But I can imagine a lot of people would just accept the gift and use it.'

'Yes. And eventually, people forget to ask and take it for granted. With no conflict or competition to motivate technological advances, development stalls. The human race enters a golden age of art, entertainment, leisure activities and . . . stagnation,' John explained. 'Whoever these visitors are, they are afraid of what you are capable of becoming and where you will go. The human race spreads through the galaxy and across the universe, and someone wants to stop you. So the question is . . . what do they want us for?'

'Right. So we need the Secretary General of the United Nations to ask some specific questions,' Jack said. 'I'll have a word with the president.'


	4. Meeting of Minds

**Chapter 4**

 **Meeting of Minds**

There was a sudden 'Oh!' from the crowd opposite the United Nations Building, as a silver bubble expanded with breathtaking speed in the sky above. A gust of air tore at Secretary General Stormgren's clothes as the tiny ship came to rest in the courtyard fifteen metres away, floating delicately a few centimetres above the ground, as if it feared contamination with Earth.

As he walked slowly forward, Stormgren saw a puckering of the seamless metallic hull, and in a moment the opening appeared before him. He stepped through it into the ship's single, softly lit room.

In the Comms Hub of Torchwood One, the senior staff of Blue Watch were watching the Secretary General closely.

'Are you getting this on the "fly" Charles?' Jack asked Charles DiCaprio, director of Torchwood New York.

['Not at the moment. We had to "park" the Spy-Fly on the back of Stormgren's jacket collar so that it wouldn't be noticed.']

The entrance of the metallic bubble sealed itself as if it had never been, shutting the Secretary General of the United Nations inside. It rose suddenly into the air, causing a partial vacuum which blew leaves and waste paper around. Hundreds of telescopes watched as the shiny ball bearing approached the massive ship above.

['Damn. We've lost the telemetry on the Spy-Fly,'] John Weston, the New York, Special Operations Technical Support specialist reported.

'Ah, thought that might happen,' John said, tugging his earlobe. 'It's the energy field around the ship blocking the signal. Hopefully, the internal memory on the Spy-Fly will continue to record and we can download it when it comes back.'

'Charlie, you'll upload the data to the server as soon as the Spy-Fly comes back online?' Jack asked the face on the screen.

['Of course Jack. I suggest we reconvene in the Conference Rooms with video link and view the data together.']

'Good idea. Okay people, keep your diaries free for the next few hours and I'll give you a call when we're ready.'

Three hours later, news media cameras and telescopes saw the metal ball leave the alien's ship and descend back towards the United Nations Building. Torchwood New York "pinged" the Spy-Fly with the data request signal, and it started downloading the recorded data.

In the Conference Room in Canary Wharf, senior staff sat around the conference table, with senior staff in New York on screens around the walls. They were listening to the introductory chit-chat of two people getting to know one another.

'Stormgren did agree to ask our questions?' Jack asked Charles on the screen.

['Oh yes. He said they were questions he himself wanted to ask.']

Stormgren was getting down to business on the recording. ['So Karellen, when are we actually going to meet?'] They had worked out that the Secretary General was sitting at a desk, in a room on his own.

A deep, warm, resonant voice replied. Rose said it reminded her of the actor, Patrick Stewart. ['Ah, yes. For that Rikki, you must be patient. The human race is not yet ready to meet us face to face.']

['Really? And why is that?']

['I cannot say. The reason will become apparent when we finally reveal ourselves. Until that day, I will have to ask you to trust me.']

'That's not a good start,' John said out loud.

'Yeah. I wonder what they're hidin'?' Rose asked.

['I wonder if you really appreciate how difficult this state of affairs will make my job?'] Stormgren continued earnestly,

['It doesn't exactly help mine,'] replied Karellen with some spirit. ['I don't want people to think of me as a dictator. I'm only a civil servant trying to administer a colonial policy in whose shaping I had no hand.']

'That was quite an engaging description,' Jack said. 'I wonder just how true it is.'

['Can't you at least give us some reason for your concealment? Because we don't understand it, it annoys us and gives rise to endless rumours,'] Stormgren explained.

Karellen gave a rich, deep laugh, just too resonant, to be altogether human. ['What am I supposed to be today? Does the robot theory still hold the field? I'd rather be a mass of microprocessors than a thing like a centipede.] He must have seen Stormgren's reaction. ['Oh yes, I've seen that cartoon in yesterday's Chicago Tribune! I'm thinking of requesting the original.']

Stormgren pursed his lips primly. He thought Karellen was taking his position too lightly. ['This is serious,'] he said reprovingly.

['My dear Rikki,'] Karellen retorted, ['it's only by not taking the human race seriously that I will retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess!']

['That doesn't help me a great deal, does it? I have to go down there and convince my fellow men that although you won't show yourself, you've got nothing to hide. It's not an easy job. Curiosity is one of the most dominant of human characteristics. You can't defy it forever.']

['Of all the problems that face us coming to Earth, this is the most difficult,'] admitted Karellen. [I regret the need for this concealment as much as you do, but the reasons are sufficient. However, I will try and get a statement from my superiors which may satisfy you and perhaps placate those who doubt our intentions.]

wever, I will try and get a statement from my superiors which may satisfy you and perhaps placate those who doubt our intentions.]

'Told you,' John said smugly. 'These guys are working for someone else.'

['Very well. Now, the questions people have about you are, firstly, who are you?']

There was humour in his voice when Karellen answered. ['As they already know my name, I presume that you mean our race. The closest name that translates in English, is Overseers.']

'Overseers?' Alice said. 'That sounds a bit ominous.'

Andy nodded. 'Karellen said he was Supervisor for Earth, but supervising what?'

['And where do you come from, where do you call home?']

['Ah, yes. Your astronomers call our star 2MASS J23062928-0502285. Not very poetic is it,'] Karellen said with a chuckle. ['It's a dim cold red star, also known to you as TRAPPIST-1, about thirty nine light-years from Earth in the constellation of Aquarius. Our planet is the third from our sun.']

Jack looked to his scientific lead. 'John?'

John checked his tablet PC. 'Ah, here we are. TRAPPIST-1, first studied with the TRAPPIST telescope in Chile.'

'What, like in trappist monks?' Rose asked with a frown.

John grinned at his wife. 'Nah, Transiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope. TRAPPIST-1 is a type of star known as an ultracool dwarf. It's two thousand times less bright than our sun, a bit less than half as warm as our sun, about one-twelfth the sun's mass, and less than one-eighth the sun's width, making it only slightly larger in diameter than Jupiter.'

['And why are you here Overseer Karellen, Supervisor for Earth? I know you said in your original message that you had come to help us, to prevent us from annihilating ourselves . . . Why would you want to do that?']

'Ooh, nicely done Rikki,' Jack said.

['Your race has shown a notable incapacity for dealing with the problems of its own rather small planet. When we arrived, you were on the point of destroying yourselves with the powers that science had rashly given you. Without our intervention, the Earth would become a radioactive wilderness. We wish you to have a world at peace, and a united race. Eventually you will be sufficiently civilized to run your planet without our assistance. Perhaps you could eventually handle the problems of an entire solar system say fifty moons and planets. But do you really imagine that you could ever cope with this?']

'He must be showing him something on a screen,' John reasoned.

['In this single galaxy of ours,'] murmured Karellen, ['there are eighty seven thousand million suns. Even that figure gives only a faint idea of the immensity of space. In challenging it, you would be like ants attempting to label and classify all the grains of sand in all the deserts of the world.']

'I was right,' said John. 'A display of the galaxy by the sound of it.'

['Your race, in its present stage of evolution, cannot face that stupendous challenge. One of my duties is to protect you from the powers and forces that lie among the stars forces beyond anything that you can ever imagine.']

'Pompous git!' John exclaimed. He'd heard plenty sanctimonious dictators in his nine hundred years as the Doctor.

['So you are denying us the stars?'] Stormgren asked with a hint of annoyance.

Karellen's voice was soothing, placating as he replied. ['I did say "in its present stage of evolution". We are tasked with overseeing the survival and evolution of the human race.']

['Saving us from ourselves, so to speak.']

There was a deep chuckle. ['So to speak.']

['And how will you "save us from ourselves"? How do you enforce peace without becoming a dictator?']

'Good question,' Andy said. 'Even the United Nations Peacekeeping Force couldn't force people to keep the peace.'

Karellen answered both of their questions with a quote. ['I believe one of your philosophers, Lao Tzu wrote; "Counsel people not to use force, for this would only lead to resistance".']

'They're Taoist,' John said in surprise. 'Who'd have thought it?'

['That doesn't answer my question Karellen. People will want to know how you are going to achieve world peace. In your original message you said, and I quote; "You may kill one another if you wish, and that is a matter between you and your own laws. But if you slay, except for food or in self defence, the beasts that share your world with you then you may be answerable to me". You also said; "Dictators of oppressive and corrupt regimes who torture and execute innocent civilians, should hand power to a democratically elected leader or suffer the consequences".']

['I see you have the transcript of my speech on your device,'] Karellen said.

['Yes, and I'm wondering how you will achieve this?']

['As is everyone else I should imagine,] Karellen replied. ['I'm afraid I must impose on you Rikki as Secretary General of the United Nations, to make an announcement to the world's press. Tell them that anyone in the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, in Madrid tomorrow evening will experience a demonstration of the methods we will use if any animals are harmed there. There will also be other, less public interventions around the world.']

Jack started to plan for next day. 'Chrissie, I need your team to hack into every camera in the Plaza de Toros tomorrow.'

'No problem,' she replied.

Karellen continued. ['Also, any oppressive and corrupt governments who rule by creating a culture of fear, and who threaten their populations with violence, must begin the process of free democratic elections, or they too will experience a demonstration of our methods of reform. You may assure them that we will use no force or violence, but we WILL make our displeasure known.']

'I can't wait to see that,' John said with a boyish grin. 'Isn't he a tease?'

Jack turned to one of the screens. 'Charlie. Can you get the CIA to position some of its spy satellites over some of the "unfriendly" countries and see what happens?'

['Good idea Jack. I'll get Gene to contact them now,'] Charles said. Eugene Hunter was head of the New York Special Operations Unit.

The recorded meeting wound down, and there were no more important revelations about the Overseers. It was mainly United Nations business, so Jack called an end to the meeting. All they could do now was wait until tomorrow when everything would "kick off".

* * *

'We'd better get to bed,' Rose suggested as she switched off the TV after another normal evening at home.

'Did you hear that?' John asked as the room went silent.

'Hear what?'

'There's a small furry animal scratchin' the french windows in the dinin' room,' Donna-the-House told them.

'Wha'? Y'mean we've got rats?' Rose said in alarm.

'No,' Donna-the-House said in a "rolling the eyes" tone of voice. 'It's a cat. A black one. Are they supposed to be good luck or bad?'

'Good, unless they cross your path,' John told her.

'What's it doin' outside our dinin' room?' Rose wondered.

'Tryin' to get in by the look of it,' Donna-the-House said.

'Well, when we go to bed it'll get bored and go back to it's home,' John said, standing up and holding his hand out for Rose.

As Rose stood up there was more scratching at the french windows, and a mournful meow. 'Oh listen to that,' Rose said sympathetically. 'It might be injured.'

'Or looking for a free supper from a sucker for a sob story,' John said with a grin.

They went through to the dining room, and John unlocked the french windows, opening the right hand door outwards. Rose stooped down and stroked the cat's head.

'Hello little fellah. What's the matter.' They were expecting another mournful meow.

'Doctor Smith I presume, and Mrs. Smith, how nice to meet you. Can I have a word?' is what they actually got from the cat, which to be fair, wasn't what they were expecting.

'Er, yeah. Okay,' John said uncertainly. 'Would you like to come in?'

'Yes, thank you. Oh, a bespoke kitchen . . . very nice. The living room through here is it?'

John and Rose watched as the cat strolled out of the dining room towards the living room. They looked at each other, and then at Donna-the-Robot, who just shrugged and said, 'he's got nice manners anyway.'

The cat strolled into the living room with that usual air of feline arrogance which said he had every right to be there. Rickey the Cyber Dog on the other hand didn't agree. His ears lowered as he growled at the cat.

'Ah, a cyber dog. So much more civilised than those hairy oafs that sniff each others backsides,' the cat said. 'I do like the realistic behaviour responses you've incorporated into the base program.'

'Thank you,' John said with a bemused smile as they followed the cat into the living room. 'It's all right Rickey. In your basket, there's a good lad.'

The Cyber Dog stopped growling, looked up at John, and then trotted to his charging basket. The cat wandered over to the fireplace, and sat on the rug in front of the hearth.

'Oh look,' Donna-the-Robot said. 'The cat sat on the mat.'

The cat looked left and right, and then looked up at them. 'Hardly a mat. More of an excellent quality rug I would say. Very comfortable.'

'So . . . cat. Can we get you anything?' John said awkwardly. 'A saucer of milk perhaps?'

'The name's Alogue, and a drop of beer wouldn't go amiss.'

'In a glass or a saucer?' Donna-the-Robot asked sarcastically.

'A saucer would be nice. I get less of it on my ears and whiskers that way.'

Donna-the-Robot sniffed. 'Fair enough,' she said and went to get one of John's cans of beer out of the fridge. Oh, and a saucer.

'So, Alogue. You wanted a word,' John said as he and Rose sat on the sofa.

'Ah, yes. I'm guessing you know about the ships appearing in the sky.'

'Kinda hard to miss,' Rose said jokingly.

Donna-the-Robot put the saucer on the rug and poured some beer into it. 'You want the rest?' she asked John.

'Er, yeah. Thanks Donna.'

'You want a saucer as well?' she asked with a smirk.

John laughed at his mickey taking, mechanical house

keeper. 'Nah, I'm good thanks.' He took the offered can and raised it towards Alogue. 'Cheers. Now, I'm guessing you know something about these Overseers. Am I right?'

Alogue licked his lips after lapping some of his beer. 'The Overseers, no. My ancestors never saw them, and didn't know their name when they encountered these ships on other worlds in the past.'

'So cats are aliens!' Rose exclaimed. 'I thought you were just windin' me up,' she said to John.

'Actually, I was born on this planet, which technically makes me a naturalised citizen. Other cats however, are indigenous.'

'Ah, that explains a lot,' Rose told him.

The cat frowned. 'Excuse me?'

'Well your grasp of our language and your manners. John and me are fluent in cat, and all they seem to talk about is birds, mice, and shaggin' other cats.'

'They are rather uncouth aren't they?' Alogue said with a feline grin, and then became straight faced. 'You speak cat?'

'We speak lots of alien languages,' John explained, and then brought him back to the point. 'You were telling us about these ships.'

'Yes. My people were employed as administrators by the Osirians. We are very meticulous and fastidious in our record keeping.'

'Osirians? Osirians? Hang on. That was that Sutekh bloke and his pyramids,' Rose remembered.

'You know of Sutekh?' Alogue asked in surprise. 'He is the reason we got left behind on Earth, when the Osirians had to chase after him.'

'We ran into him a couple of years ago,' John told him. 'Rose did a number on him and sent him packing.'

'Then I was right to trust you,' Alogue said, and saw the questioning look on their faces. 'My associates were worried that you may expose us and make our lives difficult.'

'Nah, not us. Anything you say in this house, stays in this house,' John assured him.

'Thank you. I will tell you what I know. On two separate occasions, when the Osirians were building pyramids on other worlds, these ships appeared in the skies. The visitors did something to the apex lifeforms. In fact, when I think about it, they remind me of humans. Even though they didn't look like you, they were inquisitive, inventive and very intuitive.'

'Ooh, I love a good bit of alliteration,' John said with a grin, and then became serious. 'What did they do to these inquisitive, inventive and intuitive people? Karellen said he was tasked with overseeing the survival and evolution of the human race'

'That sounds familiar. Over a generation, they changed them, made them more intuitive until they became psychic. It was as if they accelerated their evolutionary development.'

'Hmm. And how did that end for them?'

'I don't know. The Osirians left before the conclusion. I do know that it was the children that were changed. The parents had no more offspring, and those remaining children were the last of their kind.'

'But that's awful,' Rose said. 'Surely they can't want to do that to us?'

'Not on my watch,' John said with a hint of the Oncoming Storm in his voice. 'But why would they want a world of psychic children?'

'I don't think they did,' Alogue said sadly. 'From what our ancestors heard from the Osirians, when the last of the adults had past away, the remaining children left their material form behind. They became beings of thought alone. Their planet disintegrated to dust in the process.'

Rose looked at her husband for reassurance. 'But that's not our destiny, is it? I mean, we've been to New Earth in the year five billion and it was full of humans. Oh, and cat people.' She looked at Alogue. 'I wonder if that was your lot?'

Alogue frowned. 'The year five billion? My lot?'

John scratched the back of his head. 'Er, yeah . . . Bit complicated. Time can be rewritten,' he said hesitantly. 'But on the other hand, it could be that we stop it from happening.'

'So which one is it?' Rose asked him.

'Haven't a clue. Isn't that brilliant. Tell you what though, if I could have a look at your ancestor's records Alogue, I might be able to work it out.'

'Ah, that may be a problem. How's your sense of smell?'

'Excuse me?' John asked with a frown. 'It's superior to most humans, but not as good as a full Gallifreyan . . . Why?'

'We Bastetians have a . . . unique form of non verbal communication. We have around two hundred million odor-sensitive cells in our noses, and we also produce over five thousand individual volatile ketones which we can use to record information.'

'Oh that is gorgeous,' John said with an open mouthed smile. 'No, really. That is . . .'

'What?' Rose asked with a puzzled expression.

'A chemical alphabet. No, not an alphabet. A chemical Kangxi Dictionary.' Rose gave him "that look". The one that said he would have to give her a bit more than that.

'It's like written Chinese. The characters don't constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary as such. Rather, the writing system is roughly logosyllabic; y'know, a character generally representing one syllable of spoken Chinese and may be a word on its own or a part of a polysyllabic word. Alogue here can combine thousands of these chemical characters to form a complete text.'

'Oh,' Rose said, and Alogue had a rather pleased smile on his face . . . for a cat.

'I should be able to use the sonic screwdriver as a text reader,' John said with a smile which matched Alogue's.


	5. Evolving Time Lines

**Chapter 5**

 **Evolving Time Lines**

The following morning, the dividing line between night and day, swept across the prime meridian as it moved inexorably westward over the Atlantic Ocean, banishing the darkness and bringing a new dawn to a new day. Except for when it passed over the South American continent.

As the terminator passed over the capital city of one of the countries there, dawn never came. There remained visible merely a pale, purple ghost of the sun, giving no heat or light. The government there immediately lodged a complaint with the United Nations, claiming that the Overseers were mistaken and that they had been unfairly victimised.

'How the hell are they doing that?' Chrissie asked, as she watched the satellite feed of a dark circle over South America, which was three hundred miles across.

John took a sip of his tea, put on his "brainy specs" and leaned forward to look at the data on the screen. 'Ooh that is gorgeous. A cone of polarised electromagnetic radiation beamed out from one ship at a specific location.' He put down his mug of tea and spread his fingers to demonstrate.

'You send out another polarised beam from a different direction . . .' He put the fingers of his other hand crossways over the top. '. . . And hey presto, the two beams create a dome of interference where they cross, completely blocking out any radiation from the sun. Genius!'

'So it's like bein' in a permanent solar eclipse,' Rose suggested.

John grinned at her. 'Exactly.'

'Wow. That is awesome,' Chrissie said.

Jack was looking at the news feeds. 'Ha! The United Nations have replied to the complaint. Under Chapter IV of the Convention against Corruption, they have offered to send a team of investigators to scrutinise every aspect of their government. Needless to say, said government promptly withdrew their complaint.'

Jake Simmonds was working the Despatch Desk for the shift, and he read a report copied over from the Comms Hub. He brought it to the attention of the shift supervisor. 'Rose. We've intercepted a radio message from a Greenpeace ship in the North Atlantic.'

Rose went over and leaned on the back of his chair to look at his screens. 'What have you got?'

'They are reporting that a whaling ship is dead in the water. Apparently, they were closing in on a pod of whales, and when they were about to harpoon one of the pod, they lost all power.'

John had come to stand next to his wife, and he looked at the screens with interest. 'D'ya think it's the Overseers?' Rose asked him.

'Could just be a coincidence,' he said with raised eyebrows.

'Really?' Rose asked sceptically.

He turned and gave her that boyish grin. 'Nah. It's got extraterrestrial interference written all over it.'

'But wait. Although I don't agree with it, aren't whales hunted for food?' Rose said, playing devils advocate.

'Wellll. Bengal tigers hunt humans for food,' John countered. 'Cetaceans are sentient . . . Ooh, sentient cetaceans, I like that. Sentient cetaceans sail the seven seas . . .'

'John,' Rose interrupted. 'Whaling ship. Dead in the water.'

'What? Oh, yeah. Well, people don't like being hunted for food, so why should whales? I doubt the whalers stop and ask "do you mind if I impale you with this harpoon".'

'There's something else coming in Rose. A bit closer to home,' Jake told them. 'Police and paramedics have been called to a barn in Shropshire, where dozens of people reported dog bite injuries to their faces. The paramedics could find no injuries to treat, however the police found two Pit Bull terriers with bite wounds to their faces.'

'Illegal dog fight,' Jack said. 'Last time I was at one of those was on Ellis Island in 1892. Got in a fight when I tried to stop it, a man shot me through the heart,' he remembered with a distant look in his eyes.

'Overseers?' Rose asked.

'Overseers!' John agreed. 'Sounds like remote neural stimulation. These guys are really showing off their technology.'

As the day went on, and dawn broke in the Far East, one of the larger, more powerful nations that fell under what one newspaper had nicknamed the "shade of shame", took a great deal of umbrage at being accused of oppression, corruption, torture and executions of innocent civilians. The Minister of Information stated that in a recent obligatory census, every person praised the government on its fairness and said that they were happy and content.

The government used this statement to justify the launch of nuclear weapons against the "alien oppressors", who in their opinion were denying their citizens their human right to sunshine.

'Tell me we've got everything monitoring those missiles,' John said. What the Overseers did with those missiles would give him a great deal of information.

Chrissie grinned. 'I think the whole world has got everything pointed at those missiles.'

They watched as the missiles approached the Overseers ship, and disappeared into the energy shield. They didn't explode or break up, they just vanished.

John scrutinised the Torchwood data. 'YES! It's not extrapolator shielding, that was a transmat beam. They teleported the missiles away somewhere. I was right to keep the TARDIS hidden. If they detect the superior technology, they'll nick my motor.'

In the Middle East, and Africa, more countries experienced what another newspaper had nicknamed the "dome of doom". Few governments lodged complaints, and people took the opportunity to express their displeasure at the corrupt leaders, hoping that the presence of the Overseers would add weight to their voices.

John and Rose had decided to stay on after the end of their shift so that they could see the live feed from the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas. Rose's parents had happily agreed to have the children for the extra hour, enjoying any opportunity to be with their grandchildren.

It was after five in London, after six in Madrid, and the Plaza de Toros was full when the matadors and their attendants began their professional entry. Everything seemed normal; the brilliant sunlight blazed harshly on the traditional costumes, the great crowd greeted its favourites as it had a hundred times before. Yet here and there faces were turned anxiously towards the sky, to the aloof silver shape twenty miles above Madrid.

Then the picadors took up their places and the bull came snorting out into the arena. The skinny horses, nostrils wide with terror, wheeled in the sunlight as their riders forced them to meet their enemy. The first lance flashed, made contact and at that moment came a sound that had never been heard on Earth before.

It was the sound of ten thousand people screaming with the pain of the same wound ten thousand people who, when they had recovered from the shock, found themselves completely unharmed.

John straightened up from viewing the monitor in the Despatch Office. 'Yep. Targeted neural stimulation. Very sophisticated. They are recording the pain receptor pathways in the bull, extrapolating that and converting it into a stimulus for the human nervous system. That is some awesome technology.'

'You sound like you admire them' Jack suggested.

'What's not to admire? And I can tell you one thing, these guys are pacifists. When you have technology like this, you don't need weapons or aggression. Anyone who tries to attack you, attacks themselves.'

And that was the end of that bull fight, and indeed of all bull fighting, for the news spread rapidly. It is worth recording that the aficionados were so shaken that only one in ten asked for their money back.

* * *

'So what are we gonna do about these Overseers then Love?' Rose asked the next morning as she lay in bed beside her husband, her arm and leg draped across him. 'I mean, Alogue suggested that the Earth would disintegrate when our kids turned into thoughts. And that Karellen bloke said our race, in its present stage of evolution, couldn't face the challenge of travellin' the universe. But we've been to Shan Shen and New Earth, we know that we make it. Does that mean that the Overseers help us do it?'

'Ah, now this could be a chicken and egg situation. I don't recall seeing anything about Overseers steering humans towards the stars before. So has their appearance set in motion events that gets you to the stars, or does it hinder you?' John asked.

'Well won't it change the time line that we know exists? Y'know, affect the colonisation of Shan Shen or New Earth?' Rose reasoned.

John gave her that smile, the one that told her she'd been brilliant again. 'That, my Love is why it's time to show our hand and take the TARDIS on a little road trip.'

'Wha? We're goin' to New New York? Brilliant!' She wriggled across and lay on top of him, running her fingers through his great hair and kissing his gorgeous lips.

'Mmmmmmph. Yeah. If you go in with Alice and do the briefing as usual, I'll get the kids to school and then bring the TARDIS briefly to the standby room so that you can jump on board. The Overseers will probably detect the Old Girl, but we should be gone before they can investigate.'

'Sounds good to me,' she replied. 'Which means we've still got time for an intimate shower,' she said with a cheeky smile. A few minutes later, they were in the steam filled shower cubicle of the en suite bathroom, where grunts of pleasure and groans of satisfaction emanated, accompanied by the squeaking of a bare bottom on the tiled cubicle.

'Mmmmmm. I'd better get dried off and get my uniform on. Alice will be along soon to give me a lift in,' Rose said, as she gave her husband a passionate kiss.

'Yeah,' John squeaked as she uncoupled her strong, shapely legs from around his hips. 'And I'll have to get the kids ready for school.'

A while later, Rickey trotted into the kitchen to announce that his programming was complete and the children were now awake.

'Woof!'

'Good lad Rickey,' Donna-The-Robot said, reaching into the bowl of batteries, and flipping one into the air. He caught it in his mouth and swallowed it. He would absorb the energy and "poo" out the used battery later when it had been drained.

'Good boy,' Rose said, as she sat at the breakfast bar in her smart, black, Torchwood uniform, eating her muesli. A few minutes later, she heard small footsteps coming down the stairs and along the hallway. A young, red headed girl entered the kitchen, the hair colour having been inherited from her grandfather.

She was wearing her school uniform of grey pinafore dress, white polo shirt, and a blue cardigan with the school crest embroidered on it.

'Mornin' Sweetheart,' Rose said with a smile, as she helped her daughter up onto the stool and kissed her on the top of her head.

'Morning Mummy, morning Donna.'

Donna's visual interface smiled. 'Hello Juleshka. Cheerios is it?'

'Yes please,' she said with delight.

As Donna-The-Robot prepared a bowl of Cheerios, they heard two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs.

'Morning,' Eyulf said as he breezed into the kitchen with his brother Jason.

'Mornin' Son,' Rose said, as she turned down the collar of his polo shirt and tucked it into the neck of his blue, school sweatshirt. He never seemed to be able to get that right Rose thought with a smile. She ran her fingers through his unruly hair, trying to get it into some semblance of order, before kissing him on the head.

'Shreddies?' Donna asked Eyulf.

'Er, can I have some Rice Krispies this morning please Donna?'

'One bowl of Rice Krispies comin' right up. And Jason, what would you like for breakfast?'

'Can I have Rice Krispies please? I like the sound they make.'

'Of course y'can Sweetheart. Two bowls comin' right up.'

Eyulf helped his younger brother climb up onto the stool at the breakfast bar before sitting down himself. Rose smiled warmly at how he looked after his brother and sister. He was such a caring and thoughtful young man.

John strolled into the kitchen wearing his usual brown, pinstriped suit, and sat next to Rose at the end of the counter. He took a piece of toast, spread some orange marmalade on it, and took a bite. There was a gentle hush in the kitchen, as breakfasts were eaten, until Eyulf asked a question.

'Are you and Mum going to sort out the aliens today?' he asked his father. John suspected that he was picking up his mother's anticipation of travelling forward into the time line.

'We sort out aliens most days,' John said teasingly. 'But if you mean those guys in the ships up there . . .' He raised his eyes to the ceiling briefly. 'Then yeah. We're going to sort them out.'

'Alice is here,' Donna announced suddenly.

'Ooh, let her in please Donna,' Rose said.

They heard the front door open and close, and the clip-clop of heels along the hallway. There was a chorus of greetings as Alice entered the kitchen, wearing a cream skirt, with a white blouse and a black jacket.

'Morning Auntie Alice,' the children called out.

'Morning you lot.'

Rose finished her mug of tea, licked her lips, puckered up, and gave John a snog. 'See ya later, lover boy,' she said with her tongue through the teeth smile.

'Yeah. I'll let you know when I'm about to arrive,' he replied, stroking her hips.

She reached her purse off the counter, and rummaged inside to find her lipstick and mirror. She applied her lippy, and pursed her lips together. 'Right, I'm ready. Be good kids and I'll see you this afternoon.'

'Bye Mum. Bye Auntie Alice,' the children called back.

'Bye,' Rose and Alice said as they headed down the hallway to the front door.

John and Donna got the children ready for their day, before doing the school run, and dropping Jason off with Jackie at the mansion. Lonsdale Road was busy with a number of cars doing the school run, so John took manual control and managed to pull into the small car park in front of the imposing, Edwardian red brick building. The passenger door rose up, and Eyulf climbed out. Juleshka dropped the seat forward and climbed out after him.

'Bye Dad / Daddy,' they called to him. 'Bye Jase.'

'See you later,' John called back. 'Have a good day.' They waved and went inside the school with their friends.

He manoeuvred back out of the car park onto Lonsdale Road. 'Tyler Mansion,' he said to the DeLorian, and the car made it's way across London.

'Mornin' John,' Jackie said as they walked into the living room. 'Ooh, and how's my grandest grandson today?' She held her arms out for a hug, and Jason didn't disappoint.

'Granny!' he said with a smile, and hugged her around the neck as she lifted him off the floor.

Pete was sitting in his armchair, reading the Daily Mail and smirking. 'Hi John. I've just been reading the comments from the sports editor about that little demonstration in Spain yesterday. He's suggesting that the Spaniards adopt cricket as a new national sport.'

'Hah. I bet that went down well. The Americans will be inviting them to join the baseball league next.'

'Mummy and Daddy are going to sort the aliens out,' Jason told his grandparents proudly.

'Are they now?' Jackie said, giving John a questioning look. She remembered them saying that they were giving up active service and taking supervisory and advisory roles.

'Wellll, I don't know about sorting them out as such. It's just that we received some new intelligence and we're going to jump forwards a bit to see what happens,' John said sheepishly.

'What was the intel?' Pete asked. 'I didn't see anything on the server.'

'Er, no. You wouldn't have. An informant came to the house and told us his ancestors had seen these ships before on other planets.'

'That sounds like a positive lead. Who was the informant?'

'Ah, now that's a bit awkward. They've asked for anonymity . . . and you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you.'

'Hah!' Jackie scoffed. 'Says a man who changed his body and then split it in two.'

'Right . . . Yeah. Better get on though. Lots to do.' He kissed his son on the cheek. 'See you all later.'

Jackie was giving him a mother-in-law look, which said "you'd better be back or you'll have me to answer to". He'd become used to that look over the years. Pete on the other hand, was giving him the concerned, former director of Torchwood look which said, "do it and come back in one piece".

'Be careful,' is all he said.

John nodded towards his son, indicating that he had three, very important reasons to be careful. 'I will. See you later on.'

The DeLorian drove him back to Northumberland Place, and he made his way down to his basement workshop where he could feel the hum of anticipation from the TARDIS.

'That's right Old Girl, time to fly.' ['Rose, are you ready?'] he thought to his wife.

['Key in hand and ready to go.']

['Okay. Allons-y.']

He selected the Standby Room from the "favourites" menu and pulled down the lever. The Time Rotor started to grind up and down, and he felt a gentle "clomp" as the TARDIS landed. The door opened and Rose hurried inside. As soon as she closed the door, they were back in the Vortex.

John checked the monitor. 'Ah, I was right to be cautious. They detected the superior alien technology, and are scanning Torchwood to try and find us.'

'We've blown our cover then,' Rose said with a grin. 'I suppose this means the game is on.' He gave her his best grin in return and set the controls for New Earth.

The TARDIS landed on the grassy bank of the Hudson River where it had parked all those years ago in another universe on their first visit. In the year five billion and sixty-three, John and Rose had visited many times to dine at their favourite restaurant "Felene's" in New New York.

Rose stepped out first, and looked across the wide river to a beautiful alien forest. 'So where are we then? I thought we'd have gone to New New York.'

'We have come to New New York. It's just across the riv . . .' John stopped in the doorway and looked across the river. 'Oh. That's not good. That forest should be a thriving, bustling city.'

'Does that mean that humans never got here then?'

'Yeah, it certainly looks that way. Come on, let's go and look somewhere else.'

They went back into the TARDIS, where John set the controls for Shan Shen and pulled down a lever which started the Time Rotor grinding up and down. After a minute or two, he stopped the rotor and followed his wife down the ramp to the doors. They stepped out of the TARDIS into a market street filled with various crowded stalls.

'At least this is still here,' Rose said with relief.

'Is it though?' John said as he looked around. He looked up, and saw flying cars buzzing overhead, and beyond that, he could see several moons or planets, pale in the daytime sky, one of which had a ring system.

As they wandered in between the various stalls, they noticed that there were no flags, paper lanterns, or pagodas. And the sound of traditional Chinese folk music was obvious by its absence.

'Where's Mai Ling's stall gone?' Rose asked as they approached the stall that should have been hers. 'And Chen Li's drinks stall?'

'There are just humanoid species here . . . no humans.'

'D'ya mean the Overseers have made our friends disappear?'

'Not exactly. To disappear, you have to appear in the first place. Mai Ling, and Chen Li were never here. I'm getting a bad feeling about this.'

John took them on a whistle stop tour of the universe. The planet Sense Sphere in the fortieth century, the Leisure Hive of Argolis in the Mutter's Spiral, Limnos 4, Abydos, and Fiesta 95 in the Rim Worlds of the twenty third century. There were no humans anywhere. Eventually they ended up at Syrtis Major on Mars in the twenty second century. There was no busy pleasure dome, no thriving colony, in fact no humans at all.

'So the Overseers stop us from travellin' to the stars,' Rose said angrily. 'Who the hell do they think they are?'

'Like I said when they first arrived, they think they're the new rulers of planet Earth. And talking of Earth, where is it?'

'What'cha mean, where's the Earth? Don't tell me someone's moved it like the Daleks did in the other universe,' she said with a hint of irritation, and then remembered what Alogue had told them. 'Oh don't tell me it's been disintegrated.'

'I don't know. I've found the Moon wobbling about in an excentric orbit around the Sun, but no Earth to be seen anywhere. I've had enough of this. It's time to have a word with these Overseers.'


	6. Karellen

**Chapter 6**

 **Karellen**

The TARDIS materialised on the lower deck of a large, "U" shaped control room, the open end of the "U" being a large window looking out over the curving horizon of the planet Earth below. The Overseers turned to watch in surprise, as a small, blue wooden box appeared in the high tech room.

The right hand door opened inwards, and John stuck his head out to look around. 'Oh hello . . . Blimey! No wonder you lot have been hiding away up here. One look at you and you'd have had everyone running for the hills.'

The Overseers were indeed eight feet tall, with red skin and yellow eyes with vertical slit pupils. They had horns growing out of the side of their heads, and large, pointed ears. They had bat like wings on their backs, four fingers and two thumbs on each hand, and just to finish the look, they had horse-like hooves for feet.

'You wouldn't have a distant relative on Krop Tor would you?' John asked with a frown, as he stepped out of the TARDIS. 'Y'know, the one you might send a Christmas card to but hope never visits. The throwback or something.'

Rose stepped out behind him and gasped at the archetypal demons standing in front of her. 'Wha? Y'mean the beast in the pit looked like these guys?'

'Pretty much, yeah,' John replied as he strolled forward with his hands in his pockets.

'What is the meaning of this?' one of the Overseers said. 'Who are you?' They recognised the voice of Karellen.

'Hello big fellah. I'm John Smith, commonly known as the Doctor. Scientific advisor to the Torchwood Institute. Do you remember them? They're the people you ignored when you arrived . . . and I'm also scientific advisor to the government of the People's Republic of Great Britain.' He turned to look at Rose. 'And this is Rose Smith, commonly known as my wife, and general, all around brilliant human.'

'Hello,' said Rose, giving them a little wave.

'And the meaning of this little visit is, that you've been messing around with the development of the human race, and I'm here to tell you to knock-it-off!'

'But where do you come from?' Karellen asked.

John gave him an "isn't it obvious" look. 'Down there of course. Earth. It's our home, and you lot want to alter its future development.'

'But this technology is beyond anything this planet can conceive.'

'Well, that's because it's not from this planet . . . It's not even from this universe.'

'Which suggests that you are not from this planet or universe?' Karellen reasoned.

'Technically, no. But I've put a lot of work into "Pete's World".'

'Pete's World?'

'Yeah. Er . . . long story. Look, let's just cut to the chase. Who are your superiors, and what do they plan to do with planet Earth?'

'As we are above you, so there is something above us, using us for its own purposes. We are guardians of the human race, no more.'

John shook his head. 'There you go with that pompous superiority again. Trust me Karellen, you are NOT above me, and no one uses me for their own purposes, so tell me, who is it above you?'

Karellen sighed. 'We have never discovered what it is, though we have been its tool for ages and dare not disobey it. Again and again we have received our orders, have gone to some world in the early flower of its civilization, and have guided it along the road that we can never follow the road that the human race is travelling now.'

'The road to oblivion if you ask me,' Rose said.

'Again and again we have studied the process we have been sent to foster, hoping that we might learn to escape from our own limitations. But we have glimpsed only the vague outlines of the truth. We are the Overseers. Let us say that above us is the Overmind, using us as the potter uses his wheel, and your race is the clay that is being shaped on that wheel.'

'Charmin',' Rose said sarcastically. 'Now he's callin' me a lump of clay.' Karellen raised his eyebrows at Rose.

'Overmind?' John said thoughtfully. 'Overmind? Overmind . . . Nope, never heard of them. So what's this Overmind making with the clay then, a pot? A vase? I know, a teapot!'

'There are powers of the mind, and powers beyond the mind, which human science could never have brought within its framework without shattering it entirely. All down the ages there have been countless reports of strange phenomena poltergeists, telepathy, precognition which have been named but never explained. At first science ignored them, even denied their existence, despite the testimony of five thousand years. But they exist and if it is to be complete any theory of the universe must account for them.'

'My science brought it within the framework without shattering it millennia ago. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and gave it to my wife,' John said flippantly. 'Humans on the other hand are throwing bricks at the greenhouse of psychokinetic energy.'

Karellen wasn't sure if he was joking or not, and gave him quizzical look before continuing. 'As you say, a few of Earth's scientists have begun to investigate these matters. They do not know it, but they are tampering with the lock of Pandora's box. The forces they might unleash transcend any perils that the atom could bring. For the physicists can only ruin the Earth; the para physicists could spread havoc to the stars. That can not be allowed. I cannot explain the full nature of the threat they represent. It is not a threat to us, and therefore we do not comprehend it. Let us say that they may become a telepathic cancer, a malignant mentality which in its inevitable dissolution would have poisoned other and greater minds.'

'Who the hell told you that? Oh, let me guess. The Overmind, of course,' John said.

'I must tell you something which you may find very surprising, perhaps almost incredible,' Karellen confessed. 'All these potentialities, all these latent powers we do not possess them, nor do we understand them. Our intellects are far more powerful than humans, but there is something in their minds that has always eluded us. Ever since we came to Earth we have been studying them; we have learned a great deal, and will learn more, yet I doubt if we shall discover all the truth.'

'Oh, that is clever,' John said. 'Pick a race that has no psychic powers and use them as farmers. You won't have a clue what's really going on.'

'Perhaps. Our races have much in common that is why we were chosen for this task. But in other respects, we represent the ends of two different evolutions. Our minds have reached the end of their development. So, in their present form, have humans. Yet they can make the jump to the next stage, and therein lies the difference between us. Our potentialities are exhausted, but theirs are still untapped. They are linked, in ways we do not understand, with the powers I have mentioned the powers that are now awakening on this world.'

'Are you sayin' the human race is becoming telepathic?' Rose asked.

Karellen continued. 'We believe it is only a theory that the Overmind is trying to grow, to extend its powers and its awareness of the universe. By now it must be the sum of many races, and long ago it left the tyranny of matter behind. It is conscious of intelligence, everywhere. When it knew that you were almost ready, it sent us here to do its bidding, to prepare you for the transformation.'

John was starting to get troubled by this explanation. 'Hang on, are you trying to tell me that this "Overmind" wants to absorb the whole of the human race into itself?'

'What?!' Rose asked in horror.

'It is a transformation of the mind, not of the body. By the standards of evolution, it will be cataclysmic instantaneous. It has already begun. You must face this fact; the children below will be the last generation of homosapiens.'

'Like hell they will,' Rose said angrily.

John put his arm around her shoulders to reassure her. 'What is this transformation you are overseeing?'

'As to the nature of the change, we can tell you very little. Your children will give birth to their successors, and it is a tragedy that they will never understand them, will never even be able to communicate with their minds. Indeed, they will not possess minds as you know them. They will be a single entity, as you yourselves are the sums of your myriad cells. They will not think them human, and they will be right.'

John had the look of the oncoming storm in his eyes as he spoke in a controlled, authoritative voice. 'You really should have talked to us when you first arrived. I could have saved you a lot of trouble.'

He addressed all the Overseers on the bridge. 'Right. Listen up, because these are our children you are talking about, not some lumps of clay to be moulded by a mad potter!'

'I'm afraid that none of us have any say in any of it,' Karellen said sadly.

'Oh, I have a say,' John told him. 'Because I'm part of the human race now. I'm a Human-Time Lord hybrid, and in the old universe, I was over nine hundred years old, and I was known by many names. Some of them good, The Doctor, The Traveller from Beyond Time. Some of them not so good, The Predator, The Bringer of Darkness, The Great Exterminator, The Destroyer of Worlds. And one of them very appropriate . . . The Oncoming Storm. So tell me Karellen, how do I contact this Overmind?'

'I do not know,' Karellen said honestly. 'The Overmind contacts us.'

'Why doesn't that surprise me? Overmind? Why does that sound familiar? Overmind, Over-mind. A mind that is over and above yours,' John said to himself and then slapped his forehead. 'Oh, oh of course. No. It can't be . . . can it? No. Yes . . . In this universe? No . . . Although, I wouldn't put it past him.'

'What is it Love?' Rose asked. 'Do y'know who's behind this?'

John nodded and looked at the Supervisor for Earth with sadness. 'Oh Karellen, I am so sorry. You really should have talked to me.'

'Why? What are you suggesting?' Karellen asked cautiously.

'I'm suggesting that you've been lied to, that you've been duped by a malevolent entity.'

'A malevolent entity . . . the Overmind?'

John tugged his ear awkwardly. 'Yeah. Sorry about that. I think you should come with me to Torchwood so that I can show you something.'

'We cannot show ourselves, the world is not ready to see us yet. We have to keep to the timetable.'

'A timetable drawn up by the Overmind no doubt. I think it's gone beyond that now.'

'Nevertheless, we have experience of what can happen when a world is not ready to see us. I will remain here and follow the plan.'

There was a long pause before John spoke suddenly, making Rose jump. 'Right! Yes . . . of course. The plan's the thing. Come on Rose, time we went.'

'What? You're not gonna leave it at that are ya?'

'What choice have we got? We'll have to think of something else.'

She reluctantly took his hand and allowed him to lead her into the TARDIS, where John activated the Time Rotor, putting them into the Vortex. Rose was frowning at him as he moved around the console.

'I can't believe we just left them there to carry on with their plans to destroy the Earth. I hope you've got somethin' up your sleeve.'

John gave her one of his boyish smiles, waggled his eyebrows, and nodded at the doors behind her. Rose turned in time to see the large, red shape of Karellen appear on the ramp with his back to her. They saw his head look left, right, and then up and around the cathedral-like interior of the TARDIS. His eyes took in the roundels, the white marble coral struts, the cornice mouldings and the oak panelling, before coming to rest on John and Rose.

'I presume that was a teleport,' Karellen said calmly. 'What is this place.'

'Oh my God. You kidnapped him!' Rose exclaimed before John could reply.

'No I didn't. I just invited him for a friendly get together with some of the most enlightened minds on the planet. Now, Karellen me old mate. It wasn't a teleport, this is our ship.'

'It's called the TARDIS,' Rose proudly informed him.

'And it's inside that blue wooden box on your bridge. It's just materialised around you. And now . . .' He flicked a lever with a flourish. 'We're going to Torchwood.'

The Time Rotor pumped up and down, and Karellen looked on in amazement. 'Transdimensional engineering and travel. Quite remarkable. Many times I have extrapolated the theory and completed the calculus, but never did I believe that I would ever see a working example.'

'Good innit,' Rose said with a grin.

'So, are you willing to consider that I might know what I'm talking about?' John asked.

Karellen thought about the question and then nodded his head. 'I am willing to be proved wrong.'

'That's good enough for me,' John said. 'Allons-y.'

In the Special Operations Standby Room of Torchwood New York, members of the Watch turned to watch the TARDIS wheeze and grind its way onto the landing pad.

'Damn. Don'tcha just love that freaky wooden box?' one of the agents said.

'You got that right,' another agreed.

Both doors of the TARDIS opened, and John stepped out with Rose, to be greeted by Charles DiCaprio.

'John, Rose. Good to see you again. How's the family?'

'Hello Charles,' Rose said, kissing his cheek. 'The kids are growing fast, and mum and dad are keeping busy with the foundation charity.'

'Make sure to say hello from me when you see them.'

'Will do.'

'Charlie-boy,' John said as he shook his hand. 'Did you manage to get the Director General?'

'Yes. One of our people has gone to fetch him. He should be here shortly.'

There were gasps around the room as Karellen ducked his head under the door frame and stepped into the room. When he stood upright, he was as tall as the TARDIS.

'And you must be Karellen,' Charles said, holding out his hand to shake. 'My name is Charles DiCaprio. Welcome to Torchwood New York.'

Karellen was puzzled by their reaction. 'Er, hello Charles,' he said, shaking the offered hand awkwardly with his two thumbs. 'You don't seem disturbed by my appearance.'

'Why should they be?' John asked. 'They've seen lots of aliens over the years.'

'But you have got to be one of the coolest,' an agent said. 'My kids would love to go trick or treating with you.'

'Trick or treating?' Karellen queried, and then understood the reference and gave a deep, resonant chuckle. 'Ah, Halloween. Your celebration of the ancestors. Very good.'

One of the female agents laughed. 'He's got a sense of humour. I wasn't expecting that.'

['Hey Doc. Is that Karellen?'] Jack Harkness asked on the video wall.

They all looked at the wall, and saw the members of Blue Watch at Canary Wharf looking on with interest at the unusual visitor.

'Hi Jack. Yes it is. Karellen, may I introduce Jack Harkness, Director of Torchwood London.'

'Hello Mr. Harkness.'

['Well hello Karellen. It's Jack by the way, and it's nice to finally meet you, even if it is only via a video link. Loving the horns and the tail by the way.']

'Jack. Stop it,' John warned him.

'Thank you Jack. I like to think they are my best features. And may I say that you have nice teeth.'

Jack gave him his best smile, and Rose burst into fits of laughter. 'I don't believe this,' she said.

'Todd? We are receiving a transmission from the Overseers ship. They are claiming that the Supervisor for Earth has been kidnapped, and are demanding his return,' the Despatch agent called out from the Despatch Office to the Watch Supervisor.

'Whoops!' John said sheepishly.

Karellen gave a slight smile. 'May I speak with my ship?'

Charles gave a short bow. 'Of course Karellen. Todd, can we patch it through?'

Todd nodded to the Despatch agent, and a red, alien face appeared on one of the bulletin board screens.

[Karellen. Are you harmed?']

'Calm yourself Rashaverak. I am a guest of the Torchwood Institute, and it appears that we have matters to discuss. Things are not as we thought they were. I will be in touch when I am ready to return.'

'Director? I have Mr Stormgren here as you requested,' an agent said as he entered the room with the Director General of the United Nations.

'Oh, thank you Josh. Shall we go to the Conference Room where we can discuss the matters at hand?'

'Of course,' Karellen said. 'Hello Rikki.'

Stormgren's face blanched at the sight of the demon in front of him. 'Dear God. You're Karellen?'

'An interesting turn of phrase. I would have thought "dear Devil" to have been more appropriate,' Karellen said with a wry smile.

John laughed out loud. 'Oh I like you Karellen.'

['John, stop it,'] Jack said cheekily from the video wall.


	7. 2MASS J23062928-0502285

**Chapter 7**

 **2MASS J23062928-0502285**

Heads of departments were sitting around the table in the New York conference room, with department heads in London on video screens in a replay of their previous meeting. That is except for John and Rose, who were now in New York, and Karellen of course, who was sitting on a comfy sofa which had been dragged from the wall to the table. It was the only chair that he could fit in comfortably, even if his legs were crossed with his knees by his shoulders.

'So, just to recap,' John started. 'The Overseers are here to do the bidding of something they call the Overmind.'

'The Overmind?' Charles asked.

'I'll come to that in a minute. The Overmind wants the human race to achieve its full potential and become beings of pure thought.'

'Don't we get a say in that?' Eugene Hunter asked.

'Apparently not. Karellen informs me that our children will be parents to the last generation of humans as we know them. The "new" humans won't be concerned with material things, or even with matter itself.'

['So how does all this play out then?'] Jack asked on the video link.

John looked at Karellen. 'I've been told you've done this before.'

Karellen nodded solemnly. 'This will be the fifth race whose apotheosis we have watched. We do not know how the transformation is produced, what trigger impulse the Overmind employs when it judges that the time is ripe. All we have discovered is that it starts with a single individual always a child and then spreads explosively, like the formation of crystals around the first nucleus in a saturated solution. Adults are not affected, for their minds are already set in an unalterable mould. After a few years, it will all be over, and the human race will have divided in twain. There is no way back, and no future for the world you know. All the hopes and dreams of the human race will be ended.'

['I don't know where you're getting your information, but I can tell you that I know for certain that the human race survives into the fiftieth century,'] Jack told him.

'No, it does not. But do not despair, it is a marvellous transformation,' Karellen assured them.

'Er, no it ain't,' Rose corrected. 'Jack there was born in the fiftieth century . . . sort of.'

Karellen gave her a patronising smile. 'Now you are being foolish young lady.'

'Don't you "young lady" me mate,' Rose said angrily. 'Because of you, my friend Mai Ling on Shan Shen in the five thousand two hundreds has disappeared, and New New York in the five billions was never built.'

John interrupted before Rose could let loose with a full Tyler tirade. 'Karellen. Do you remember me telling you I'm a Human-TIME Lord hybrid. My ship, the TARDIS. The letters stand for TIME, and relative dimensions in space.' He emphasised the word "time". 'The clue is in the name. I'm a time traveller, and my ship travels through time as well as space.'

'But time travel is only a theoretical possibility,' Karellen stated.

'So's a ship the size of Manhattan fitting inside a small blue box.'

'Good point,' Charles agreed.

The so far, inscrutable and composed Overseer was becoming flustered. 'But that . . . that is not possible.'

Rose handed him her tablet PC. 'That is the last post on FaceBlog by Mai Ling. The TARDIS routes messages from different time zones. Look at the date.'

Karellen took the offered tablet and looked at the date, and then looked at John. 'This is either an elaborate hoax, or you are telling the truth.'

['Please, tell us what you know,'] Alice DiMaggio said kindly to the stunned Overseer.

'Each time we have done this, my task and my duty was to protect those I was sent to guard. Despite their wakening powers, the children could have be destroyed by the multitudes around them yes, even by their parents, when they realized the truth. I took them away and isolated them, for their protection, and for that of their parents. I did not blame the parents for trying to interfere, but it was useless. Greater powers than mine had awoken; I was only one of their instruments.'

Rose cleared her throat before she spoke. What she had heard was deeply upsetting. 'And when the children had transformed and left, you destroyed the planets?'

'That would have been simplest, perhaps, and most merciful, to destroy those that were left behind, as you yourselves would destroy a mortally wounded pet you loved. But this I could not do. Their future was their own to choose in the years that were left to them. I hope that they went to their rest in peace, knowing that that they had not lived in vain. And at the end of days, when the parents had all gone to their rest, and their children had made the transformation, they turned the worlds to dust. For what the parents had brought into those worlds may have been utterly alien, it may have shared none of their desires or hopes, it may have looked upon their greatest achievements as childish toys yet it was something wonderful, and they had created it.'

'But why does the Overmind need you?' queried Eugene. 'With all its tremendous powers, surely it could do anything it pleased.'

'No,' said Karellen, 'it has limits. In the past, we know, it has attempted to act directly upon the minds of other races, and to influence their cultural development. It's always failed, perhaps because the pull is too great. We are the interpreters the guardians. Or, to use one of your own metaphors, we till the field until the crop is ripe. The Overmind collects the harvest and we move on to another task. As I have said, this is the fifth race we have watched over. Each time we learn a little more.'

'Let me give you another, more appropriate metaphor,' John said. 'You fatten the calf for the feast.'

There were gasps of disbelief from the Torchwood members and accusing glances at Karellen. 'Surely you are not suggesting that the Overmind is feeding on the transformed populations,' Karellen said.

John looked at the faces around the room. 'I believe I've met this Overmind before, in the old universe. Only then It called itself the Great Intelligence.'

'Hang on Love. Are you sayin' this is the same Great Intelligence as the one in the old universe?' Rose asked.

'I think it could be. It exists on the astral plane, and has no physical form, relying on possession of living creatures to manipulate its environment. I reckon it could have crossed the void like you cross the street.'

['What, like that Sutekh character a few years ago who was messing with the pyramids?'] Jack asked.

'Exactly,' John agreed. 'Just like Sutekh, it can enter the people it encounters. It allowed the High Lama Padmasambhava to live for over three hundred years while he created Robot Yeti, and it also reanimated dead bodies. It's got considerable mental powers, like mind control and can even mentally attack me, which is saying something. It hurt . . . a lot. Oh, and it can travel through time and space.'

['Damn, here we go again,'] Andy McNabb said quietly.

John continued. 'Unlike Sutekh, the Great Intelligence can also manifest itself in simple forms such as a slime that glows brightly, a dense fog that consumes anything that enters it, and a poisonous web fungus that can't be destroyed by chemicals, explosives, or flamethrowers.' He looked at Karellen. 'Any of that sound familiar?'

Karellen was silent for a long time as he thought about what he thought he knew, and what he now knew. 'There was an elder, when we were first engaged by the Overmind . . . the Great Intelligence as you have named it. He lived three times the span of any that had gone before.'

'Yeah, that'd be it,' John said. 'And now I'm guessing you get messages that mysteriously appear on monitors or view screens . . . voices emanating from audio circuits?'

Karellen nodded silently, the full realisation of what the Great Intelligence had done weighing heavy on his shoulders. 'So I am responsible for allowing billions of beings to be taken to their deaths?'

'No!' John said firmly. 'There is only one being responsible for that, and that's how it works, by stealth and deception. It insinuates its way into your lives, into your culture.'

'And we did not question the motives of the Overmind,' Karellen said sadly. 'How can I continue, knowing what I now know? And yet, how can I resist such a powerful, non-corporeal being?'

'You don't,' John told him, standing up. 'I do.' He walked around the table and held his hand out to Karellen. 'It's been nice knowing you Karellen, but when I get back, you won't be here. In fact you won't ever have been here. All I need from you is the date when the Overmind first contacted you.'

* * *

When Rose stepped out of the TARDIS and checked her uniform, tugging down her jacket and smoothing her skirt. After all, she was an ambassador for the Torchwood Institute. When she looked up, she gasped in surprise. She was standing, it seemed, unsupported among the uppermost peaks of an alien city, with nothing to protect her from the abyss. But she felt no more vertigo than one does in an aeroplane, for there was no sense of contact with the distant ground. John stepped out behind her, his long brown coat billowing slightly in the gentle breeze.

'Not too shabby is it?' he said as he looked around.

'Not too shabby?' They were above the clouds, sharing the sky with a few pinnacles of metal or stone. A rose red sea, the cloud layer rolled sluggishly beneath them. There were two pale and tiny moons in the sky, not far from the sombre sun. Near the centre of that bloated red disc was a small, dark shadow, perfectly circular. It might have been a sunspot, or another moon in transit.

Rose slowly moved her gaze along the horizon. The cloud cover extended clear to the edge of this enormous world, but in one direction, at an unguessable distance, there was a mottled patch that might have marked the towers of another city. She stared at it for a long while, before continuing her viewing of the alien landscape.

John jumped up and down, looked up at the sky, at the horizon, and then down at the cloud layer. 'Hmm. That's interesting.'

'What is?' Rose said distractedly as she turned a half circle and saw a mountain. It was not on the horizon, but beyond it a single serrated peak, climbing up over the edge of the world, its lower slopes hidden as the bulk of an iceberg is concealed below the water line.

'The gravity's wrong. This planet is larger than Earth, and yet the gravity is about the same as Mars.'

Rose was trying to guess the size of the mountain, and failed completely. Even on a world with gravity as low as Mars, it seemed hard to believe that such mountains could exist. And then, slowly, the mountain began to change. When she saw it first, it was a dull and almost sinister red, with a few faint markings near its crown that she could not clearly distinguish. She was trying to focus on them when he realized that they were moving.

At first she could not believe her eyes. 'John, those mountains . . . they're moving!'

John screwed up his eyes and looked at the mountain. He then raised his eyebrows and grinned. 'Oh yeah. It's like Felspoon,' he said with obvious delight.

Rose forced herself to remember that all her preconceived ideas were worthless here. This was what she loved about travelling the universe with her husband. The mountain, she still thought of it as such, for there was no other word that could serve, seemed to be alive. It was not organic life that she was watching; it was not even, she suspected, matter as she knew it.

'That is amazing,' she breathed. 'Oh I've missed this.'

The sombre red was brightening to an angrier hue. Streaks of vivid yellow appeared, so that for a moment they felt they were looking at a volcano pouring streams of lava down on to the land beneath. But these streams, as they could tell by occasional flecks and mottlings, were moving upwards.

Now something else was rising out of the ruby clouds around the mountain's base. It was a huge ring, perfectly horizontal and perfectly circular and it was the colour of the skies of Earth.

The ring was expanding as it climbed. It was higher than the mountain now, and it's nearer arc was sweeping swiftly towards him. Surely, thought John, it must be a vortex of some kind a smoke ring already many kilometres across. But it showed none of the rotation he expected, and it seemed to grow no less solid as its size increased.

Its shadow rushed past long before the ring itself had swept majestically overhead, still rising into space. They watched until it had dwindled to a thin thread of blue, hard for the eye to focus upon in the surrounding redness of the sky. When it vanished at last, it must already have been many thousands of kilometres across. And it was still growing.

'What is that?' Rose asked.

'Welll. Looks to me as though someone is messing about with gravity manipulators,' he replied. 'Isn't that brilliant? And that mountain. What's all that about?'

Rose looked back at the mountain. It was golden now, and devoid of all markings. Perhaps it was imagination, she could believe anything by this time but it seemed taller and narrower, and appeared to be spinning like the funnel of a cyclone.

A voice behind them made them jump. 'Who are you, and what are you doing here?' They turned to see an Overseer folding his wings behind him. He must have glided onto the roof they concluded.

'Ah, yes. Right. I'm the Doctor . . . John Smith,' he said with a charming smile. 'And this is Rose.'

'Hello,' she said with a little wave of her fingers.

'I am Hexanerax. We have not had visitors from another world before. What is your purpose here?'

'We're here to see one of your elders, Ralpachan.'

Hexanerax frowned. 'Ralpachan? How is it that you know Ralpachan?'

'That, my friend, is the million dollar question. Can you take us to him?' John asked.

Hexanerax seemed to contemplate the question for a long time before coming to a decision. 'I will take you to the Senate. They will hear what you have to say and make a decision.'

'Sounds good to me. Take us to your leaders.'

The Overseer indicated a strip of flooring that at first sight seemed an ornamental pattern. They stepped forward and something invisible grasped them gently and hurried them forward. They were moving past buildings at a speed of twenty or thirty kilometres an hour.

They noticed that streets were practically non existent in the city, and there seemed to be no surface transport. This was the home of creatures who could fly, and who had no fear of gravity. It was nothing to come without warning upon a vertiginous drop of several hundred metres, or to find that the only entrance into a room was an opening high up in the wall. In a hundred ways, Rose began to realize that the psychology of a race with wings must be fundamentally different from that of earthbound creatures.

It was strange to see the Overseers flying like great birds among the towers of their city, their pinions moving with slow, powerful beats. As they travelled, John considered the scientific problem that was nagging at him.

This was a large planet larger than Earth. Yet its gravity was low, and John wondered why it had so dense an atmosphere. 'Do you mind me asking? The gravity is too low for a planet this size, and yet it's able to retain a dense atmosphere.'

'This is not our original planet. We evolved on a much smaller world and then conquered this one, changing not only its atmosphere but even its gravity,' their escort informed him.

John grinned at Rose. 'Gravity manipulators. I knew it.'

The architecture of the Overseers was bleakly functional; Rose saw no ornamentation, nothing that did not serve a purpose. If a man from medieval times could have seen this red lit city, and the beings moving through it, he would certainly have believed himself in Hell. She looked up, and thought she caught a glimpse of something, flashing lights and changing shapes, things that flickered through the air so swiftly that she couldn't be certain of their existence?

She pointed them out to John who shrugged as he answered. 'No idea. They could be something tremendous and awe inspiring . . . there again, they could just be neon signs like on Oxford Circus or Broadway.'

John was sensing that the world of the Overseers was full of sounds that he could not hear. Occasionally he caught complex rhythmical patterns racing up and down through the audible spectrum, to vanish at the upper or lower edge of hearing.

The city was not very large; it was certainly far smaller than London or New York. With a constant stream of conversation, John cleverly learned that there were several thousand such cities scattered over the planet, each one designed for some specific purpose. On Earth, the closest parallel to this place would have been a university town except that the degree of specialization had gone much further. It turned out that this entire city was devoted to the study of alien cultures.

Hexanerax guided them off the invisible travelator onto a great round platform. When they stepped onto the platform, it started falling steadily, like a piston in a vertical cylinder of unknown length. There were no visible controls, and John wondered how Hexanerax controlled it. After all, Karellen had told them that they had no telekinetic powers.

Standing behind the Overseer, he took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned him. The results were displayed on a holographic display above the tip of the screwdriver, which could only be viewed by the operator. 'Ah,' he said as he put it back in his pocket.

['Ah what?'] Rose asked in his head.

['Cybernetic implants. Poor man's telepathy. He's controlling all the transport with brain impulses. When he was thinking about whether to take us to the council, he was probably asking for advice via a radio implant.']

The sense of acceleration at the beginning and ending of the descent was quite noticeable. Presumably the Overseers did not waste their compensating field devices for domestic uses. John wondered if the whole interior of this world was riddled with excavations; and why had they limited the size of the city, going underground instead of outwards? He loved it when he didn't know stuff.

Wellll. Actually, he preferred it when he'd found out about the stuff he didn't know about . . . Oh who was he kidding. He hated not knowing stuff, but loved finding the answers to the stuff he didn't know.

The falling platform came to a sudden stop, and Hexanerax led them towards a pair of large doors which seemed to open on their own.

['Implants?'] Rose asked.

John grinned. ['Implants.']

They were led into a large room where a dozen Overseers were sitting on tiered, circular benches around the chamber. 'Ah, Hexanerax. I understand you have found some off world visitors wandering in the High City,' the leader of the Senate said.

'Yes Vindarten. I have brought them to the Senate as you advised.'

'Very good Hexanerax, that will be all.' Hexanerax bowed and left the chamber.

'Hexanerax informs us that you are Doctor John Smith, and this is Rose. He also informs us that you know of the elder Ralpachan and request an audience with him.'

'Er, yes, yes, yes, and yes,' John said with a cheeky smile. 'Nail on the head there that man.'

'Ralpachan is advanced in years and rather frail. We at the Senate wish to shelter him from any . . . shall we say excitement.'

'Ooh, I think you'll find he'll have a good few years ahead of him if the Overmind has its way,' John said with raised eyebrows.

'You have knowledge of the Overmind?' Vindarten asked.

'Ah. Already made contact has it?'

'At first we believed Ralpachan had become feeble minded. He created designs for a fleet of interstellar ships, and as time passed, it became apparent that an entity was speaking through him. It called itself the Overmind, and it had a message for us. It said that henceforth we would be known as the Overseers.'

'Did it now?' John said with a hint of sarcasm. 'Well I also have a message for you.'


	8. The Great Intelligence

**Chapter 8**

 **The Great Intelligence**

John took a tablet PC out of his coat pocket and switched it on. He then took his sonic screwdriver out of his jacket pocket and scanned the large display screen at one end of the Senate chamber.

'What'cha doin'?' Rose whispered as the members of the senate looked on with patient interest.

'Syncing this tablet to their multimedia screen,' he muttered as he examined the results of his scan. 'Ah, I can use the sonic as a wifi router. And if I do this . . .'

The large screen came to life, and the freeze-framed face of an Overseer came into view. John pressed play on the tablet, and the recorded message began.

['Members of the Senate, greetings. You do not know me yet, but my name is Karellen. If Doctor Smith is correct, at this time I will be a student, innocent of what is yet to come. And what is to come will rob us all of our innocence,' Karellen said with his calm, measured delivery.

['By now, I believe that the Elder, Ralpachan will have been contacted by an entity which calls itself The Overmind. It will claim to speak through Ralpachan and task our race with a mission to oversee the evolutionary development of civilisations that possess latent mental powers. This is a lie!']

There were murmurings of disbelief from members of the Senate, and calls for this "Karellen" to be brought before them. The playback however, continued.

['The Overmind is a malevolent being Doctor Smith calls The Great Intelligence. It is not speaking through Ralpachan, it is actually inside his mind. A parasite. It is interested in the development of psychic civilisations only so that it can consume them as food. Doctor Smith has met this entity before and defeated it. He may be an off worlder, but he is your best hope for the future. I implore you to trust him and give him every assistance.'] The screen went dark.

'Soooooo. What do you say then?' John asked the assembly.

'I say this is an elaborate hoax,' one of the senators said.

'But if it is a hoax, how did they know what we look like?' another countered. John pointed at him and nodded at a good point well made.

'Time travel?' another queried. 'You expect us to believe that you have come from years ahead in our future?'

'Well, yeah,' John said as a matter of fact. 'About three and a half thousand of them.'

'Actually, the Department of Theoretical Physics at the university reported that the results of one of their experiments were skewed by a disturbance of the space-time continuum,' one of the senators announced.

John rubbed the back of his neck. 'Ah, that'd be us arriving. Sorry about that.'

'Look, I know it sounds crazy, but you've seen the message. You can examine our ship if you want, but wouldn't it be easier to just ask this Ralpachan if he'd be willin' to talk to us?' Rose said as the voice of reason.

Vindarten looked around the chamber, and all the senators were looking at one another, nodding at the sense of the suggestion.

'I will speak with Elder Ralpachan and see if he is agreeable.'

'Thank you,' John said. He turned to his wife. 'And thank you.'

Rose gave him a big smile 'You're welcome.'

* * *

Vindarten approached the throne-like chair in the centre of the tall chamber. Sitting on the chair was the thin, wrinkled, demonic form of Ralpachan.

'Elder? We have two visitors from another world. They seek audience with you.'

'From another world you say? How unusual. Why do they seek audience with me?' the crackly, old voice of Ralpachan asked.

'They bear a message they claim is from the future.'

'The future?' Ralpachan asked with a voice that didn't seem so crackly, or so old. 'What are their names?'

'The male calls himself John Smith, the Doctor. The female is called Rose.'

' **The Doctor!** ' a voice said inside Ralpachan's mind. ' **The Doctor? No, it couldn't be. Not in this universe.** ' 'Send them in. I wish to meet this Doctor and his companion.'

'As you wish Ralpachan. I will bring them here to your chambers.'

Ralpachan nodded his approval, and Vindarten left the chamber. A few minutes later, he returned with John and Rose.

'You may leave us Vindarten. I wish to speak with them in private,' Ralpachan said.

'Of course. Just call if you need anything.' Vindarten left the room and closed the double doors.

Ralpachan smiled at them and indicated some chairs that were just a bit too tall for humans. 'Please, have a seat.'

'Thank you,' Rose said, climbing onto the seat as a child would. 'And thank you for agreeing to see us.'

'How could I refuse such intriguing guests. Off worlders and time travellers,' Ralpachan said with some humour.

'Interested in time travel are you?' John asked with a knowing look.

'The idea is intriguing. However, the technical difficulties that would need to be overcome, not to mention violating numerous laws of physics . . .'

'Ahhhh, but what are difficulties and laws to a genius like me . . . or to someone with great intelligence?' John asked.

' **So it is you Doctor,** ' Ralpachan said with an otherworldly voice. ' **How is it you are here? Travel between parallel worlds is impossible for corporeal beings.** '

'Yeah, that's what he keeps sayin',' Rose scoffed. 'Doesn't seem to stop him though.'

Ralpachan smiled at Rose, and it made her shiver. ' **Not only a new face, but a new companion as well. You still have an eye for the ladies I see.** '

'New companion? I'll give you an eye for the la . . .' Rose started to say, and then fell silent as Ralpachan raised a hand.

' **Be still child,** ' he said in a chilling tone. ' **I have things to discuss with the Doctor.** '

John looked across at his wife, who was sitting motionless on the oversized chair, with her finger pointing, frozen in the middle of saying "ladies".

['Rose?'] he called out to her in his head, but she did not reply. 'What have you done to her?'

' **Simple mind control for a simple mind. She is frozen in a moment of time.** '

'Still a control freak then?'

' **Says a man who imposes his own views on truth and justice wherever he goes. And talking of travelling, how did you manage to traverse the void?** '

'Oh, that was the Daleks. Remember them? They tried to detonate a reality bomb in my universe. And yes, I imposed my view of truth and justice, and I stopped them. The walls of reality were restored, and I was stranded on this side with Rose.'

Ralpachan frowned. ' **So that was after you had the chin and wore the bowtie.** '

John returned the frown. 'Eh?'

' **Walter Simeon? Miss Kizlet? Trenzalore? That feisty companion of yours Clara Oswald? You are SO going to pay for all that interference.** '

John realised that he was talking about his doppelganger in the old universe. 'Ah, yes. The chin,' he said rubbing his chin. 'This one better is it?'

' **It appears better proportioned, yes,** ' Ralpachan agreed.

'And a bowtie? I wear a bowtie now,' John whispered to himself. 'Blimey!'

' **Well, nice as it has been catching up, I have things to do, worlds to devour and all that,** ' Ralpachan said amiably.

'You do realise that I can't let you do that, don't you?'

' **Imposing your views again Doctor? I'm just trying to make my way in this universe.** '

'Oh don't give me a sob story that you're trying to earn an honest crust. Your honest crust usually involves a trail of death and destruction.'

' **And yours doesn't? Tell it to the Time Lords Doctor . . . Oh, you can't can you?** ' John was silent, his face sad and full of regret. That was one argument he couldn't win. ' **And now it's time to have you disposed of.** '

'You can't control me like you controlled Rose. I can resist your control.'

' **Yes, but I will call Vindarten and control him.** '

'But you can't control a whole planet full of Overseers. I've already told them about you. When I tell them what you are doing, they'll resist,' John told him.

' **Ah yes. But Vindarten will be convinced that you came here to take control of my mind and attempt to destroy the Overseers. He will tell the Senate as much, and you and Rose will be public enemies numbers one and two.** '

'You can't do this. I won't let you. I-will-stop-you!'

'Help! Vindarten, come quickly. Help me,' Ralpachan called out.

'. . . adies,' Rose finished saying, and then frowned. She looked over at John, who had leaped off his chair and was confronting Ralpachan. 'John, what's going on?'

'Ralpachan here is trying to frame us so that he can have us executed.'

'Ralpachan! What is it? What is the matter?' Vindarten asked as he hurried into the room.

Ralpachan pointed with a trembling finger. 'These aliens, they are trying to take over my mind. I can barely resist them. They mean to destroy our civilisation. They must be apprehended at once!'

'Of course Ralpachan. Help is on the way,' Vindarten announced.

'Is he usin' those implants to call for help?' Rose asked.

'Welll. Normally, I'd have said yes,' John replied, seemingly unperturbed at the prospect of being arrested and executed. 'But I reckon the Senate are already on their way. Ah, talk of the devil. Sorry, no offence.'

The demonic shapes of the Senate came through the doors and formed a semicircle around John, Rose, Vindarten and Ralpachan.

'Thank goodness you responded so quickly,' Ralpachan said. 'Apprehend the aliens. They are dangerous and can control minds. Act together and overwhelm them before they can speak and influence you.'

The senators didn't move. They just stood there, watching Ralpachan. Vindarten looked between Ralpachan and the senators. He made a move towards John and Rose. 'Why do you hesitate? We must act quickly.'

'You are correct Vindarten, we must act quickly. But not against our visitors. It is Ralpachan who is the threat to our world.'

'It's too late,' Vindarten wailed. 'You've all been influenced by the aliens.'

'No they haven't,' John said, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out the tablet PC. 'Oh look. I must have left it on transmit when I put it back in my pocket.' He reached inside his jacket pocket and took out his sonic screwdriver. 'What am I like? Look at that. It's still on the router setting. Oh dear, I bet everything that was said in this room was visible on the screen in the Senate Chamber. I bet that's violated a few privacy laws . . . Sorry.'

' **NO!** ' Ralpachan gasped, and collapsed back into the high backed chair.

' **You will pay for this Doctor,** ' The Great Intelligence said through Vindarten, before collapsing to the floor.

'Ralpachan!' one of the senators called out in alarm.

'Here, let me,' John said as he took his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. He adjusted the setting and scanned the elder.

'Is he all right?' the senator asked.

'Well,' John started as he looked at the results of the scan. 'Your physiology is different to mine or Rose's. The closest I've seen is Krillotane. And Ralpachan is old. Of course he is, he's an Elder. He's an old Elder. If he wasn't old, you'd have to call him a Younger, like William Pitt . . .'

'John,' Rose said with raised eyebrows.

He looked up from his sonic and saw the Senate looking at him. 'Eh? Oh, Ralpachan. He's got a few more years in him I'm sure. He's a tough old devil . . . er, no offence.'

Vindarten roused, and propped himself up on his elbows. 'What happened?'

'That sounds like our cue to leave,' said John as he reached for Rose's hand. 'Anyone free to show us where our ship is?'

'Khrisong can take you back to your ship,' one of the senators said, and a young Overseer stepped forward and bowed. 'And on behalf of the Senate, I would like to thank you for what you have done here today, Doctor John Smith and Rose.'

'You're welcome. Come on Rose, our future awaits.'

In the TARDIS, the Time Rotor pumped up and down as John and Rose circled the console, adjusting the controls as they went.

'So those ships never come to Earth, and we can get on with our lives as normal,' Rose said, wanting to confirm what she thought was true.

John gave her a grin. 'Yeah. And as our last point of contact with the time line was the Standby Room when I picked you up, it'd be best if we materialised there.'

Rose frowned in thought. 'But if the Overseers never arrived, we would never had needed to visit their planet. So . . . won't it be a bit of a surprise when we land?'

'Hah! Yes it will,' he said, grabbing her around the waist and giving her a kiss. 'I love that brain of yours. Returning to the place you last where is the best way to avoid being in two places at once and accidentally bumping into yourself.'

'Well then, I reckon its time for a surprise.' She pulled down a lever and the TARDIS landed with a gentle "clump". 'So, what are we gonna tell them?' she asked as they walked hand in hand down the ramp. 'I mean, I don't even know where I was in this time line. I could vanish from the office to suddenly appear in the TARDIS doorway.'

John grinned. 'You could, yeah. We'll just tell them that . . . Hang on, can you feel that?'

'Feel what?'

'It's like when a ticking clock stops, you notice that it's not there.'

'Oh yeah. Somethin's missin', she said with a frown, and then she realised what it was. 'Oh God! John, where are the kids?'

'Ah, I think we could be in trouble.' He opened the door and they stepped out into the Standby Room.

'FREEZE!' The gruff voice of Andy Mcnabb commanded, accompanied by the sound of SA80 assault rifles being readied to fire.

'Oh, very funny,' Rose said. 'It's only us.'

'I SAID FREEZE!' Andy repeated. 'Do not make any sudden moves. Slowly link your fingers behind your heads.'

John and Rose slowly raised their hands and link their fingers as instructed. 'Andy? It's me, "The Doc",' John said cautiously. 'And Rose, "The Wife". Do you remember?'

'Hang on. They were at Canary Wharf,' Gwen O'Toole said. Blue Watch had led the assault against the Cybermen and Daleks in the other universe, and she remembered seeing the Doctor and Rose.

'Yeah, that's us,' Rose said encouragingly.

'The Doctor and Rose,' Julia De Graff agreed. They're the people that Mickey keeps going on about? And the blue wooden box.'

'Yeah, that's right,' Stuart Sinclair agreed.

'Mickey?' Rose started to ask, but was interrupted by a familiar voice.

'What's this alert about a blue wooden box?' Pete Tyler interrupted as he walked into the Standby Room. His eyes went wide as he recognised the two people standing in front of the blue box. 'You!?'

'Hello Pete,' John said, relieved that someone recognised them.

'Hi Dad,' Rose said, and her face fell at the expression on her father's face.

'You called me that last time we met. And I told you then, I don't have a daughter.'

Tears welled in her eyes as it all got too much. 'But Dad . . .'

'Rose. Don't . . . not now,' John said kindly, and then looked to Andy. 'Can we put our arms down now?'

'Pete. Will you vouch for them?' Andy asked.

'What? Yes, of course. Stop pointing your guns at them. These are the people who saved London at Battersea and Canary Wharf all those years ago.'

Andy stood still, assessing the threat, and then smoothly lowered his rifle. 'Stand down team. The threat level is low.'

'Thanks,' John said as he and Rose lowered their hands.

'Sorry about that, but we have to take an incursion into a sensitive area seriously. Nice work at Battersea and Canary Wharf by the way.'

'Er, yeah. Thanks. And talking of Canary Wharf,' John asked tentatively, realising that something was seriously wrong with the time line. 'What happened there?'

'But you were there,' Danny Walton said. 'Don't you remember?'

'Nah. I've got nine hundred years of memory in here,' John said, tapping his temple. 'Give an old man a break. I can't be expected to remember everything. What do you lot remember?'

'Well, we jumped over there into the lever room and took out the Cybermen that were there,' Craig Rimmer remembered. 'Mickey had gone over first to look for you Rose, to make sure you were all right.'

'Yeah, I remember that,' Rose told them.

'Talking of Mickey, where is the Mickey-boy?'

Before anyone could answer, the lift "dinged" and a Geordie accent called across the Standby Room. 'Hey Boss. I'm going to start keeping a tally of how many times me and Mickey get a bug hunt in the sewers.'

'Yeah. I think we've got a case to take to the union. That's if we had a union to take a case to,' the warm, cockney voice of Mickey Smith said. 'What the hell! Is that the TARDIS?'

'Mickey!' Rose cried out and ran into a hug with her old friend.

Mickey looked over the top of her shoulder as they rocked from side to side. 'Doctor,' he said in greeting. 'Wotcha doin' here? I thought you'd closed the crack when you left.'

'He did Mickey. This is somethin' different,' Rose explained.

'Right Pete. There's something strange going on around here and I need to work out what. Can you call a meeting of your department heads? I need to know everything that's happened since Canary Wharf,' said John.

'Andy, Meeting Room in fifteen minutes. I'll call the other heads. Mickey and Jake, I want you there too,' Pete told them as he started to dial the numbers of the department heads.


	9. Doomsday Reloaded

**Chapter 9**

 **Doomsday Reloaded**

'Now I know it's been over ten years since the battle of Canary Wharf, so some of you might not be up to date with the details,' Pete said as he started the meeting. 'Some of you know, or know of the Doctor and Rose. For those of you who don't, the Doctor and his team led the assault against John Lumis at Battersea, and fought the Daleks and Cybermen at Canary Wharf.'

'So, it was you who saved London,' Alice Dimaggio said with obvious admiration. 'Alice Dimaggio by the way. I'm head of Psychology.'

'Er, yeah, we kinda know that,' Rose said sheepishly. 'We know everyone here, and you all used to know us.'

'Eh?' Mickey said. 'How can you know them? You've never been here before. In Torchwood I mean.'

'Not in this time line, no. We're outside of our own time line and we need to get back in it,' John explained. 'So Craig was telling us that Blue Watch jumped over to the other universe and secured the Lever Room. What else do you remember?'

'I brought you back here to meet Pete. He wanted to show you what was happening here,' Jake recalled.

'When we jumped back, you called Rose's mother on the phone. She was in a staircase, running from the Cybermen,' Pete told them with a hint of sadness in his voice.

Rose thought it was strange that he'd said "Rose's mother" instead of "Jackie". She had a horrible feeling that something wasn't right. 'So did Mum come back here with ya when the Doctor closed the breach? Y'know, back to the Mansion?'

Pete raised an eyebrow in surprise. 'That's a bit of a personal question.'

'Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry. It's just . . .'

'Don't you remember? We found your mother in the stairwell, but I'm afraid the Cybermen had found her first.'

'No. That's not right. That's not how it happens. She's supposed to come back here with you,' Rose said, tears welling in her eyes again. First it was no kids, now it was no mother as well.

John reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. 'I promise you, I will fix this. I just need to work out what's gone wrong.' He turned back to Pete. 'Please . . . Carry on.'

'We went to the warehouse to see what the Daleks were up to, and you picked up a couple of clamps. The Daleks were trying to get that ark thing outside,' Pete continued.

Mickey chipped in with his own recollection. 'Yeah, but somethin' happened while we were in the lift to the top floor. There was a massive explosion that rocked the building. We thought the lift was going to fall.'

Pete nodded. 'That was enough for me. When we got to the top floor, we evacuated. You sent Rose over here so that she would be safe while you closed the breach over there, but she jumped back and we never saw you again . . . until today that is. Tell me, has the breach opened again? Are they coming back through?'

John was speed reading the mission logs on a tablet PC. 'Eh? Oh, no. The breach is still closed. Have there been any universe threatening events since that day? Y'know, an oncoming darkness, stars going out?'

'Er, no. The biggest threat we've had was from an Egyptian god called Sutekh. I lost some good people on that one, not to mention some ancient monuments.'

'What happened?' Rose asked, remembering her part in that mission. It was strange, because she remembered John getting a message from her that must have come from an alternate time line like this one, but had no recollection of it.

'This Sutekh character started using pyramids to warp the fabric of space. Thousands were killed by earthquakes and volcanoes, we had no choice. We had to launch missiles at the pyramids to stop them.'

'What about Sutekh? How did you get past his mental powers?' John asked.

'You know of Sutekh?' Pete asked in surprise. 'We hadn't come across anything like him before. We were desperate, we had no choice . . .'

'What did you do?' Rose asked quietly.

Alice cleared her throat as though she were reluctant to speak. 'One of our senior agents, Duncan Prescott, volunteered for a suicide mission. He said he'd faced impossible odds before when he was in the SAS. I hypnotised him to believe that the alien weapon he carried would neutralise Sutekh.'

'And it didn't?' John asked.

Alice shook her head, and Andy continued the story. 'The weapon was a decoy. The real weapon was a warp star in his backpack with a remote detonator. Sutekh made Duncan point the weapon at his own head. That laugh will haunt me to my grave.'

'And you triggered the warp star,' John said.

'Yeah. He went the way any SAS soldier would want to go, in a blaze of glory,' Andy said with pride.

'The world media thought a volcano on Hawaii had erupted, which we didn't argue with. There was a crater a mile wide where Sutekh had been standing moments before,' Pete finished.

Rose wiped a tear from her cheek. 'Poor Duncan.'

John summarised what he knew. 'Do you know what the explosion was that rocked the lift?'

'Not a clue,' Pete answered. 'Although you thought it might have been the Cybermen blowing up the Genesis Ark in the warehouse.'

'Did I now? And when you got to the top floor, did anyone see any Daleks flying about outside the windows?' John asked

'No,' Mickey replied. 'You were surprised when the skies were empty.'

'And you say Rose never came back to this universe. Pete, you didn't get a call from me asking you to save her?'

'No. Like I said, we never saw you again. We didn't know what had happened to you.'

'Well then Rose, I think it's about time we found out,' John said with his enthusiastic smile.

'Wha? You mean we're goin' back to the old universe?' He nodded. 'But the breach is closed. How are we goin' to open it?'

He gave her that "dribbled down her uniform" look. 'We go back to a time when it was open and put it all right again.'

* * *

The TARDIS landed with a gentle "clomp", and they shut down the Time Rotor. They had changed into the black uniforms of Special Operations agents, and had two plasma cannons, all courtesy of Pete Tyler.

'So we're actually here, back in the old universe. I never thought I'd be back here again, especially on the day where my life changed forever,' Rose said.

'Are you okay?' John asked her. She seemed a bit melancholy.

'Yeah . . . It's just that if I go up to the lever room and take a safety line, well, I'd never have been trapped in "Pete's World". I'd have been travellin' this universe with you.'

'Do you want to do that?' he asked, hoping that he knew his wife well enough to anticipate her answer.

'No,' she said without hesitation. 'Because if I did that, then we wouldn't be married. Our wonderful kids would never have been born, and I wouldn't know that I had a little brother who I love to bits. Nah, a few years of depression is a small price to pay for all that.'

He kissed her lovingly on the lips. 'Right. So let's get it back then.' They put on their respirator masks and prepared their weapons. Now they were indistinguishable from members of Blue Watch, who would be jumping in any minute now.

They stepped out of a filing cabinet in an office and looked around. Chairs had been knocked over, and papers were scattered across desks and the floor. The Cybermen had obviously been here and cleared everyone out.

'So, you go and rescue your mum, while I'll go to the warehouse and try and prevent the explosion that wasn't part of our time line,' John said.

'Was it the explosion that changed it do you think?'

'Not on its own, no. But something has changed in the Cybermen which has given them the upper hand, so be careful.'

'I will, and I want you back in one piece as well.'

She saw his eyebrows waggle through the visor of his mask. 'See you later.'

He saw her eyes sparkle with humour, and he could imagine her giving him her teasing smile. 'Not if I see you first.'

They left the office and went their separate ways. Rose was heading for the north corner staircase, where she knew her mother would be trying to avoid being caught by the Cybermen. She would have to find her and protect her so that she could meet up with Pete.

John was heading for the east staircase, where he could get to the basement warehouse which extended out from the base of the tower. They both felt the Doctor's presence in the building as he jumped back from "Pete's World". That started the stopwatch and they knew how long they had to correct the time line.

He was using his sonic screwdriver to monitor the mobile phone network, and tuned in to Jackie's phone.

['Oh, my God, help me,'] he heard Jackie plead.

['Jackie, you're alive. Listen . . .']

['They tried to download me but I ran away!']

['Shush. Listen, tell me. Where are you?']

['I don't know. Staircase.']

['Yeah, which one? Is there any sort of sign? Anything to identify it?']

['Yes, a fire extinguisher,'] he heard Jackie say and had a little chuckle to himself. That was SO Jackie.

['Yeah, that helps,'] he heard himself say. He could see himself rolling his eyes in his mind's eye.

['Oh, wait a minute. It says N3.']

['North corner, staircase three. Just keep low, we're trying our best.']

['No, don't leave me.']

['I've got to go. I'm sorry.']

The line disconnected, but the sonic detected something else. Another signal on the carrier wave. Someone else was listening to the conversation.

[' **Unit Ten Five Two. Proceed to north corner staircase three. Find the female designated Jackie and delete,** '] the new Cyberleader ordered.

['I **obey,** '] Ten Five Two responded.

"So that's how they know where she is", John thought to himself. ['Rose. The Cybermen tapped into the mobile network. They know where Jackie is. Be careful.']

['Okay Love. I'm just entering the stairwell now.']

Rose could hear her mother running down the stairs two floors below. She heard Cybermen enter the stairwell three floors down, and Jackie turn and head back towards her. As Rose turned the corner, Cyberman Ten Five Two entered the stairwell and started down the stairs.

' **Delete!** ' Ten Five Two announced.

'No, please. You can't,' Jackie cried.

'Oi, Metal Mickey,' Rose called out as she pulled back the slider on the bonding chamber. 'Delete this.' She pulled the trigger and a beam of pure white light blew the Cyberman apart.

When the smoke cleared, Jackie could see a woman in a black uniform and respirator mask. 'Oh thank you. Who are you?'

'I'm a Special Operations Agent. Your daughter and the Doctor are through that door and along the corridor. I'll cover your back, now move!' Rose said, her voice muffled through the mask.

'Rose is alive? Thank God . . . Er, do I know you? You seem very familiar.'

'No, you don't know me M . . .' She nearly said "Mum". 'Mrs Tyler. Now get a shift on. There are more Cybermen on the way up.'

Jackie pulled the door open and ran into the corridor to eventually meet Pete and fulfil her destiny.

['Mum's safe. I'm headin' up to phase two,'] she thought to John.

['Roger that. I'm in the warehouse. It looks like the Cybermen are messing with the Jathar Sunglider.']

John ducked down between crates and boxes as he made his way towards the Sunglider. Because the Doctor had negotiated a truce, the warehouse was full of Cybermen, Torchwood soldiers, and a couple of Blue Watch agents. With their masks on, John couldn't tell who they were.

He knew the Daleks were on their way with the Genesis Ark, so he had to move fast. He could see two Cybermen on a scissor lift, who had removed an access cover from under the saucer shaped craft, and were working on the power plant. One of them was in the process of removing a thick cable from a coupling.

The scissor lift suddenly started to descend.

'You really ought to call the RAC you know,' John said as he operated the lift control. 'The Repairers of Astronomical Craft people. They'd tell you that disconnecting the feedback inhibitor will cause the fusion reactor to go into overload. I don't know, talk about a bunch of cowboys. Anyone would think that you wanted it to explode.'

' **Raise the platform. We must complete our work,** ' one of the Cybermen said.

'I don't think so,' John said, sonicking the controls to lock them. 'The Daleks are the only beings here who can give you a fight. But you didn't know that, so what's changed your response.'

' **Raise the platform!** '

Before John could respond, the doors of the warehouse opened, and the Cult of Skaro entered. 'Ah, that's my cue to leave. Nice talking to you, gotta go.'

He dived over a crate and scrabbled across the floor to the stairwell door. He looked back, and saw the Doctor reach a couple of magna-clamps out of a storage bin and crawl back through the door. The roof of the warehouse started to slide open, and the Genesis Ark started to rise.

['The Daleks are heading outside. I'm on my way up,] John thought to Rose.

['Okay, see you soon.]

John started to run up the stairs, and couldn't help wondering how many steps there were. Twenty four per floor. Forty five floors. That was one thousand and eighty steps . . . Too many!

'What kept ya?' Rose said cheekily as he made it to her landing.

'Oh, you know,' he said breathlessly. 'Ran into some old friends, got chatting about old times.'

'There are four Cybermen on the next floor up. They must be the ones I see on the surveillance footage.'

'Right, come on. Originally, something stopped them getting to the lever room, and now it doesn't. And I've got an idea what it is.'

A Cyberman was waiting at the top of the stairs, with one of the plasma cannons in its hands.

' **Come with me. We have to destroy the Lever Room,** ' it said to the four Cybermen on the stairs.

'And how would you know that Cyberman? Or should I say Yvonne?' John asked from the stairs below.

The four Cybermen looked over the handrail and pointed their arm lasers at John and Rose. ' **Delete! Delete!** '

' **Not yet,** ' the Cyberman with the cannon said. ' **I want to hear what this human has to say.** '

John and Rose walked up the stairs to the landing below the Cybermen. 'Yvonne Hartman. I knew you when you were human. You were cold and heartless then. Being upgraded to a Cyberman must have been a marriage made in heaven for you.'

'Wha? That used to be the woman who was in charge here?' Rose asked. She was reminded of a Cyberman telling Pete that it used to be Jackie Tyler.

' **Identify yourselves,** ' Cyberman Hartman demanded.

John pulled off his respirator mask with a "hiss" and "shflop". 'Surprise!' Rose followed his lead and removed hers also.

' **Doctor Smith . . . and his companion, Rose,** ' Cyberman Hartman said.

'Did you notice Rose? She said "Doctor Smith", not "The Doctor". You see, I wondered how the Cybermen seemed to know what was going to happen next once Yvonne had been upgraded. She wasn't psychic, and the Cybermen certainly haven't got time travel.'

Rose followed his reasoning and realised where it was leading. 'You don't mean . . .'

'Yep. But tell me, when did you take up residence in her mind? Was it before she was director of Torchwood, or after?'

' **She was so ambitious anyway. It was easy to infiltrate the Institute and progress her career to the top. And now to reap the reward . . . Delete them.** '

The Cybermen raised their arms and turned towards John and Rose. Rose's Special Operations training kicked in. She shouldered John to the side and crouched down so that the Cybermen were all in a line, and only the nearest one could get in a shot. Not that it could get a shot in, because Rose blasted it in the chest. As that one fell forward, she shot the second, and the third, and then the fourth. By the time she had done that, the door at the top of the stairs was closing, and Cyberman Hartman had gone.

Cyberman Hartman hurried through the door from the stairwell, the sounds of disintegrating Cybermen coming through the closing door. She turned towards the Lever Room and found a plasma cannon in her face.

'You're not the only one who can cheat by travelling through time,' John said with a grin. 'Me and my gob again, eh Rose. I told you the Daleks tried to detonate a reality bomb, and when you left Ralpachan you travelled across the void to that moment and traced them back to this moment.'

' **Yes Doctor. Five million human minds all linked together in indestructible bodies. A perfect host for me.** '

'Ah, so that's why the Cybermen wanted the Daleks out of the picture. They were the only ones who could offer any resistance,' Rose realised.

' **Yes Rose, and with a linked consciousness, another of us will enter the Lever Room and destroy it.** '

'Ah, yes. They could,' John agreed. 'But they don't have time travel, do they? And while we've been having this little chat, the Doctor and Rose have been busy. Right about now, you should be feeling an irresistible urge to go to the Lever Room.'

' **I take it you are referring to Void Stuff. But Yvonne Hartman was upgraded in this universe,** ' Cyberman Hartman said smugly.

'Yeah, I know. And that suit she's wearing is a remarkable bit of engineering. I'd even say it was brilliant, and that's praise indeed coming from me. Do you know it was designed by John Lumic and built by Cybus Industries?'

' **So? What of it?** '

'There isn't a Cybus Industries in this universe.'

' **What?** '

Cyberman Hartman started to slide past John and Rose, down the corridor towards an opening into the Lever Room on the right. She tried to raise her laser arm to shoot at them, but was rotated around and disappeared through the opening.

'Ooh, John. I'm gettin' butterflies in my stomach. It's like someone's tuggin' my belt,' Rose said.

'Yeah. Don't forget we've got a bit of Void Stuff on us as well. We'd better get into the TARDIS before we all get pulled in.'

The tall, grey cabinet was down the corridor, and they went with the gentle tug towards it. John put his key in the lock and pushed the door inwards, into the cathedral-like interior. Rose noticed that the TARDIS had started to creep down the corridor. She stood in the doorway and looked through the opening into the Lever Room, where she could see the bright light of the breach.

'Rose, hold on! HOLD ON!' she heard the Doctor call out in desperation. She wiped a tear from her cheek and closed the door, realising that any moment now she would lose her grip on the lever and change her life forever.

In stealth mode, the TARDIS slowly faded from this universe.


	10. All's Well That Ends Well

**Chapter 10**

 **All's Well That Ends Well**

Rose slowly walked up the ramp towards the console and into the arms of her husband. 'You all right?'

'Yeah . . . It's just that I heard you calling to me to hold on and it all came floodin' back. I remember thinkin' I was gonna die, and how scared I was. And then I remembered all the pain and anguish of bein' lost in another universe.'

John kissed her and comfortingly rubbed her back. 'Well let's get back to that other universe and you can see how it all turned out for the best.'

He adjusted the controls, and the TARDIS shuddered and bucked as it punched its way into "Pete's World". As soon as they made it back into their universe, they felt three comforting presences in their minds.

'Oh John, it's the children, they're back,' Rose said with relief.

'Yeah, I feel them too. Come on, we'd better take these uniforms off and put our own clothes on,' he said, taking her hand and leading her out of the console room.

'Oi, one step at a time,' she said as she pulled him up outside their bedroom door. 'Step one, we take these uniforms off.'

She pulled the zip of his uniform down to his waist and ran her hands over his chest as she kissed him passionately on the lips. She slipped the uniform off his shoulders, before pulling the zip down on her own uniform and slipping her arms out, to reveal her black sports bra. She wrapped her arms around his neck and intensified the kiss. John grabbed her buttocks and lifted her off the floor whilst she wrapped her legs around his waist.

'Step two,' she breathed in a low, sultry voice as their lips parted. 'You take me to bed and blow my mind.'

'Deal,' he agreed and their lips met again. Rose reached down behind her and opened the door to the bedroom. John nudged it open with his foot and carried his horny wife inside. He dropped her on the bed, kicked off his boots and pulled the uniform down his legs. Rose wriggled out of her uniform and underwear, and lay spread-eagled on the bed, where her husband climbed on top of her and proceeded to blow her mind.

After some truly mind blowing sex, they lay in each other's arms, John on his back with an arm around her, and Rose in her familiar pose of her leg resting over him with her head on his shoulder. She was absentmindedly tracing circles around his nipple with her fingernail, which he loved the feel of.

'So how did that Great Intelligence end up at Canary Wharf then?' she asked.

'Well, like I said, it was me and my big gob. When it had you frozen in Ralpachan's chambers, it asked me how I ended up in this universe.'

'And you told him?' she asked in disbelief.

'Well, at the time, I didn't think it would hurt,' he said sheepishly.

'You're right, it didn't hurt at that time. It hurt at a different time.'

'Yeah, sorry about that. He must have travelled to the Medusa Cascade and traced the Dalek's time line back to Torchwood.'

'So that it could change our time line,' Rose reasoned.

'So that it could end it more like,' John corrected her. 'Don't forget, Cyberman Hartman was going to blast the Lever Room to kingdom come, with us in it.'

'Oh my God.' Rose cuddled closer for support. 'So the reason I never got stranded in that alternate time line was because we were both dead!'

'Yeah. A sobering thought, isn't it?'

'You're tellin' me . . . And why did the Intelligence want to destroy the Daleks? I'd have thought they would have been a better host for it.'

'Nah. Dalek minds are all nasty and spiky. They're brilliant, strong minded psychopaths. Not a comfortable environment for an obligate neural parasite like the Great Intelligence. On the other hand, five million human minds linked together in Cybermen bodies . . . the Great Intelligence would have been like a child in a sweetshop. All those lovely, juicy, human thoughts drawing it in.'

'So it found Yvonne Hartman and steered her towards becoming director of the Institute, so that she could open the breach in 2007 and let the Cybermen in,' Rose realised.

'Exactly. A self fulfilling prophecy,' he said, kissing her hair.

'And where is the Great Intelligence now?' Rose asked.

'Ah, well. That's the good bit. Had the intelligence just been in one human mind, it could have just jumped out before it got sucked into the void. But with five million minds dragging it down, it was like wading through treacle. It was stuck in that Cyberman shell as it flew into the breach, and is now stuck in the dead space between the universes.'

Rose rolled on top of her husband and kissed his chest. 'Good! Now let's have one of our fun showers and get back to work.'

The members of Blue Watch who weren't out on a shout, stopped what they were doing and watched as the TARDIS slowly appeared on the landing pad of the Standby Room. Andy McNabb strolled out of his office to see what was going on. John stepped out in his brown pinstriped suit, straightening his swirly tie. Rose followed him out, with her jacket over her arm as she finished buttoning her blouse.

Andy had a lopsided smile on his face. 'So, I take it you've finished the school run John. And Rose, I presume you've finished powdering your nose?'

'Powdering my nose?' Rose asked in confusion.

['TARDIS paradox avoidance systems,'] John explained in her head. ['It waited for you to go to the ladies room, so that you could replace you with you.']

'Ah, yeah,' she said to Andy. 'It's a bit wibbly-wobbly.'

'Look, all I want to know is . . . Do I want to know?' he asked John.

John gave him his boyish grin. 'Trust me, you don't want to know. The paperwork alone will drive you nuts.'

Andy chuckled. 'Fair enough.'

'Has anythin' been . . . happenin'?' Rose asked hesitantly, trying to find out if there were any alien ships in the sky.

'What, while you've been on the toilet?' Andy asked with a knowing smile. 'No. Peg and Van are still out on that shout in Dagenham. You know; the archaeological dig where they found an unusual skeleton?'

'Oh, yeah. That shout,' she agreed.

'And Legs and Other Craig are on their first solo outing, interviewing those suspected abductees in Brighton.'

'Of course they are, yeah,' she agreed with a cheeky smile. 'So no alien ships in the sky then?'

'Not unless you know something I don't,' Andy said suspiciously. He suspected that something had occurred wherever John and Rose had been.

'Oh, and Duncan. Is Duncan all right?' she asked, remembering how he had sacrificed himself in the alternate time line.

That confirmed his suspicions, and he grinned as he answered. 'He's gone to have a private consultation with his personal physician.'

Rose snorted a laugh. She knew that was code for Duncan having gone to have a quick snog in the broom cupboard with his girlfriend Dr. Marla Jones. Everything was back to normal, and everything was good with the world.

'Right. Well, I'm going to grab a cuppa and then I'm off to the lab to encode a few thousand volatile ketones,' John said as he headed for the kitchen area.

'And I'll catch up with the mission reports in the office while I keep an eye on the bulletin boards,' said Rose.

* * *

It was Saturday evening, and Rose came down the stairs, along the hallway, and into the living room. 'Am I the one that you want?' she asked John with her tongue between the teeth smile.

'Ooh, ooh, oooh yeah,' John replied with a lustful smile.

'Oh Mummy. You look fabulous,' Juleshka said, giving her a hug around the waist.'

'Looking good Mum,' Eyulf said from the floor, where he was playing with his Space Patrol toys with Jason.

'Love you Mummy,' Jason said.

'Oh thanks, all of you. That's lovely.'

It was Angel's Hen Night, and she was "Sandy" from the film "Grease". She was wearing a tight, black, off the shoulder top, with tight, black, Lycra trousers, and red, high heeled shoes. She had styled her hair in loose curls to complete the look.

'What time is the minibus coming?' John asked, easing his arms around her and fondling her bum through the tight trousers.

'In about an hour. It should already have picked up Alice and Gwen when it gets here,' Rose replied, running her fingers through his hair as they had a quick snog.

'Eugh! They're getting all soppy again,' Eyulf said with disgust.

Juleshka rolled her eyes at her elder brother. 'Leave them alone. It's not soppy, it's romantic.'

'You want a drink before you go?' John asked her as he smiled at his children.

'Ooh, yeah. I can get the party started early. I'll have a can of cider please.'

John went into the kitchen, whilst Rose went and sat on the sofa with her daughter. He returned with a glass of cider for his wife, and a beer for himself. The children had already got their Vitex drinks. He sat next to Juleshka and looked at the picture book she was reading.

'John, Rose?' Donna-the-House called from one of her speakers.

Rose looked up at the ceiling. 'Yeah? What is it Donna? Is the minibus here early?'

'Er, no. I don't think he's a minibus driver. There's a cat . . . a cat sat on the mat . . . on the mat outside the front door,' Donna-the-House told them.

'Oh, he got the message then,' John said with a smile. 'Could you let him in please?'

'You serious?' Donna-the-House asked him.

'What? Is that Alogue?' Rose asked. 'But he was in the other time line. What's he doin' here now?'

'Remember I went to the lab? Volatile ketones and the chemical Kangxi Dictionary? I left him a message,' John said smugly.

'Oh, right. Yeah, let him in please Donna.'

Rickey the Cyber Dog got up and growled at the door as a black cat looked around the door frame.

'Ooh look. A cat!' Juleshka said with delight.

'Ah, a cyber dog. So much more civilised than those hairy oafs that sniff each others backsides,' the cat said. 'I do like the realistic behaviour responses you've incorporated into the base program.'

'A talking cat,' Eyulf said. 'Cool.'

'Thank you,' John said to the cat. 'It's all right Rickey. In your basket, there's a good lad.'

The Cyber Dog stopped growling, looked over at John, and then trotted to his charging basket. The cat wandered over to the fireplace, and sat on the rug in front of the hearth. The three children went over to the cat and started stroking it.

'Sorry about the stroking,' Rose said. 'Would you like a beer?' she asked, remembering Alogue's preference from the other time line.

Alogue looked both stunned and bemused. 'Er, yes. That would be very nice. Thank you.'

'Donna, can we have some beer in a saucer for our guest please?' Rose asked.

'This is a wind up innit,' Donna-the-Robot muttered as she brought a can of beer and a saucer into the living room.

'I was wondering that myself,' Alogue said as the beer was poured into the saucer. 'Your invitation was very intriguing, with you knowing the Bastetian scent language and all. My colleagues were reluctant for me to come here, but I told them of your reputation and convinced them of your integrity.'

'Thank you for those kind words Alogue,' John said sincerely.

'You know my name?' Alogue realised with surprise. 'Your reputation does not do you justice.'

'Maybe not,' John said with a smile. 'But I'd like to try and live up to that reputation by offering you a gift.'

Alogue finished lapping his beer and looked questioningly at John. 'A gift?'

'Yes. I know that Earth is your home, that you were born here. But I also know that your people were unavoidably stranded here by the Osirians thousands of years ago.'

'How could you possibly know that?'

'A certain Bastetian told me. So, I'd like to give you an open invitation of a journey home, if you want it.'

'H, home?' Alogue breathed. 'Really? You can take us home?'

'Yep. If you want to. No pressure, no catch. Have a chat with your people and let me know what you decide.'

'My people are naturally suspicious and sceptical. They will wonder what the catch is. They will want to know, as do I, why you would make this offer.'

'Ah, now that's where it gets complicated.' John told him. He explained about the alternate time line, and how Alogue had helped them to save not only the Earth, but other planets that the Overseer's had visited.

'And you have a ship that can travel through time?' Alogue said with a hint of scepticism.

'Yeah. Would you like to see?' Rose asked. Wondering if a cat's reaction would be as entertaining as a humans.

'It would help me convince my people I suppose.'

John and Rose stood up. 'Come on then,' John said. 'We keep it in the basement.'

'Meeeeow!' Alogue said as he stood transfixed in the doorway. 'No, your reputation definitely doesn't do you justice.'

The expression on his face didn't disappoint. It reminded Rose of one of the clips she'd seen on YouTube of a wide eyed, open mouthed cat, and she couldn't help but giggle.

'Rose. The minibus has arrived,' Donna-the-House informed her.

'Thanks Donna. I'm on my way up . . . Sorry Alogue, I've got to go now. It's been a pleasure to meet you.' Rose knelt down and kissed the cat on his head.

'The pleasure has been all mine. It's nice to be able to talk to humans at last. However, I wonder if I might impose on you to keep our secret,' Alogue replied.

'Of course you can,' Rose assured him.

'Your secret is safe with us,' John told him. 'The kids know to keep this secret,' he said, looking around the console room. 'They can keep you secret too.'

'Thank you. I think I should be going now. I will see you again when I have spoken to my people.'

'I look forward to it,' John said.

They left the TARDIS and went back upstairs, where Alice and Gwen were coming through the front door, wearing blonde wigs, off the shoulder black tops and Lycra trousers. Alogue saw his opportunity to leave, and trotted outside.

'Bye little fellah,' Donna-the-House called after him.

'I didn't know you had a cat,' Alice said as she watched him saunter away down the path.

'Er, we don't . . . It was a stray that found it's way inside,' John explained.

There was a meow from outside which John and Rose heard as ['Stray?']

'Well, more like lost his way home. We'll help him get back there if he wants us to,' Rose said.

There was another meow. ['Thank you.']

'So are you ready then?' Gwen asked Rose, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.

'Yeah. I'll just get my bag.' Rose went into the living room and gave her children a kiss. 'Be good for your dad.'

'We will,' they promised.

She finished her glass of cider, and picked up her clutch bag off the low table. Back in the hallway, she snogged John and picked up her "angel" wings of a coat hook by the door.

'See ya later,' she called as they went out of the door.

'See you,' John called back. 'And remember. If you can't be good . . . be awesome.'

The three friends laughed. They were going to show Angel what it meant to be awesome.


	11. The Wedding

**The Arthur C. Clarke story that inspired me was, "Childhood's End".**

 **Chapter 11**

 **The Wedding**

On a small, rocky outcrop, poking into Lake Geneva, stood the fairytale castle of Château-de-Chillon. It was usually full of tourists, being one of the most visited tourist destinations in Switzerland. That weekend however, it had been rented by the Coulthard family for the wedding of their son André.

The little rocky island was pretty much surrounded by water, and the lake formed a natural moat. As a result, access to the castle was via a modern covered bridge, which crossed the shallows of the lake. This wooden bridge was the remains of the old drawbridge, and some of its old workings could still be seen.

To the side of the footbridge entrance, were a set of stone steps which led down to a small, rickety looking wooden jetty. A modern yacht was moored there, which somehow managed to look embarrassed at being a modern, high tech vessel moored alongside a medieval castle. A wooden galleon would have been more appropriate. The yacht belonged to one of André Coulthard's uncles, and it had arrived the previous day after ferrying André and his family fifty miles across the lake from Geneva.

Inside the castle, the buildings and outhouses of the castle were orientated around four small courtyards, the largest of the which was "The Courtyard of Honour", a site of ceremonial importance and the grandest of all the communal areas. And on this Saturday morning, the tranquil silence of that courtyard echoed to the sound of time and space being nudged to one side as a quirky wooden box slowly appeared below one of the covered wooden galleries that ran around the stone walls.

'There, now wasn't that easier than trying to squeeze everyone into your dad's airship?' John asked, as he stepped out of the TARDIS.

'Yeah. You'll get no argument from me,' Rose said as she followed him out and looked around the medieval courtyard. 'Oh God. This is beautiful.' She was reminded of the court of King Arthur from and adventure in the old universe.

The rest of Blue Watch filed out into the courtyard, the men in their formal morning suits, and the Blue Watch Babes in their pale blue, strapless bridesmaids dresses. They looked around in wonder at the fairytale galleries and walkways, the Gothic arches, and the round turrets.

'The kids would have loved this,' Rose mentioned to her husband. 'It's like Hogwarts.'

'Yeah, we'll have to come back here when we're not so busy.' They had decided that it would be easier to leave the children with their grandparents for the weekend whilst they focussed on the bride and groom.

'We'd better find the reception area and see where everyone is,' said Rose. But even as she finished speaking, she saw a familiar figure walking through the archway into the courtyard. 'André!'

''Ello Rose. We 'eard the TARDIS arrive,' he said in his usual French accent as he approached. A woman in a smart wedding outfit had followed him into the courtyard and stood beside him. 'And of course, you remember my mother, Anna.'

'Of course we do,' John said, shaking her hand. 'Nice to see you again Anna.'

Anna Coulthard was a tall, athletic woman in her late fifties. She had shoulder length auburn hair, chocolate brown eyes, a perfectly proportioned nose, full lips, and a strong jaw line.

'And you John,' she replied. 'And all of you,' she said to the assembled members of Torchwood, 'thank you for coming, and welcome to Château-de-Chillon.'

As she shook his hand, she remembered the last time they had met, and it was a less than joyous occasion.

 **Six months previously.**

Jack Harkness sat at his desk and accessed a file on his computer that he'd hoped he would never have to access. It was the emergency contact details for next of kin. He dialled the number for Karl and Anna Coulthard and waited for the call to connect.

['Ello,'] a woman's voice said.

'Mrs. Anna Coulthard?' Jack asked.

['Yes. Who is this?']

'My name is Jack Harkness. I'm director of the Torchwood Institute in London.'

There was silence on the other end of the phone, and Jack realised that having been a police inspector, Anna Coulthard had probably made calls like this herself.

['How bad is it?'] the woman asked without any preamble.

Jack took a deep breath. 'Your son has been injured during a surveillance operation. He is alive, and receiving the best possible care. The trauma team have stabilised his condition and I will keep you informed of any developments.'

['Thank you Mr. Harkness. We will be on the first flight to London.']

'Of course. I'll send a car to collect you when you arrive.'

['Thank you.']

When they arrived in the High Dependency Ward, they found their son asleep, with a pale, silver haired woman holding his right hand and stroking his face. Anna had seen them together on the television show that they watched via satellite, and knew that she was his field partner. She had also seen the way that her son looked at her and suspected that he had fallen in love with her.

Anna was a recently retired police inspector, and the thing people remembered when they met her for the first time, was the way she looked at you. She didn't use those dark eyes to look and see, she used them to examine and scrutinise. She would look a person up and down, assessing their posture and body language. Then her gaze would rest on the face, taking in the nuances and facial expressions. She prided herself on being able to judge someone's character within a few seconds of meeting them, and she was rarely wrong.

Today however, she failed completely, because she could not "read" this strange young woman. She sat on one of the chairs at her son's left side and squeezed his hand. 'André, Sweetheart?'

André's eyes flickered open, looked at Angel, and he smiled. He rolled his head on the pillow and looked in confusion at the faces that were there. 'Mother . . ? Father? What are you doing 'ere?' he asked weakly.

Anna rolled her eyes. 'Your director calls us and tells us you have be seriously wounded . . . What do you think we are doing 'ere?'

Karl gave a little chuckle at his wife's irritation. He was a tall thin man, with short, black hair flecked with grey. He had piercing blue eyes with laughter lines at the corners. He wore wire rimmed glasses and a neatly trimmed goatee beard. He squeezed his son's forearm. 'How are you son?'

'Weak and tired,' he said before looking back at Angel. 'But content.'

'And this must be your field partner Angel,' Anna said, with a hint of animosity in her voice, still trying to "read" her alien features.

'Yes, I am. It is nice to meet you Mr. and Mrs. Coulthard, although the circumstances of our meeting are not nice.'

As Anna watched her speak, all she could detect was honesty. Pure, simple and innocent honesty, and that threw her, because as a detective, she wasn't used to that.

'Angel saved me Mother. She dragged me out of 'arm's way. If she hadn't done that, I would 'ave died,' André told them.

'No,' Angel protested. 'It was Chris who carried you out of the school, and it was Adam who brought you back to life.'

'What 'appened?' Karl asked.

'We were on a surveillance that went wrong. We went into a school to protect a student who didn't know 'e was an alien. I was shot in the chest by an energy weapon, and like I said, Angel risked everything to drag me to safety.'

'Then we owe you a debt of gratitude young lady,' Karl said with a warm smile.

'And we 'ave some news for you,' André said. Karl and Anna looked at him with raised eyebrows. 'Angel and I are engaged.'

'Really?' Karl said with a grin.

'Engaged?' Anna queried with less enthusiasm. 'To be married?'

'That's the usual meaning of being engaged, Mother,' André said lightheartedly.

'But you've only just met. You barely know each other,' Anna protested. She knew about the Florence Nightingale effect where a patient falls in love with their nurse or doctor, or a victim falls for their rescuer.

'Mother!' André said sharply. 'We know each other well enough to know that we love each other.'

'Do you?' she asked her son. She then turned to Angel. 'Do you love him?'

It was fair to say that the answer she got, was not the one she was expecting. 'I think I do,' Angel said honestly.

'Don't you know? 'E's asked you to marry 'im. I would 'ave thought it was important to be sure,' Anna said. She was right about this alien, she didn't love her son.

Angel hesitated as she considered her response. 'Love is an intellectual concept that seems difficult to define.'

'Try,' Anna said somewhat unkindly.

'Mother, that is enough,' André said angrily, wincing at the pain from his healing chest wound.

Angel looked at André and gripped his hand for support. 'No André, it is all right . . . When I saw you get shot, it was as if I was also shot,' she started to explain. She looked at his parents. 'If I'd have had the chance to throw myself in front of André and take the hit myself, I would gladly have done so to spare him the pain and distress he has experienced.'

Her eyes started to fill with unshed tears. 'And when I cradled his head on my lap, and I watched the light go out of his eyes . . . a part of me died with him.'

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she looked at her love and remembered that moment in the car. 'And when you were brought back to life . . . back to me, I . . . I knew I would not be able to live without you.' She wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked at Anna. 'Is that love? It fills me with so much joy, and yet it causes me so much pain. Is that right, is that what love does?'

Anna went to speak, but had to clear her throat. She reached a tissue from the box on the bedside cabinet and dabbed her eyes. She reached across the bed and held Angel's hand which was holding André's. 'Yes,' she whispered. 'That is love . . . In fact, I think that is one of the most poignant declarations of love I 'ave ever 'eard.'

Anna stood and walked around the bed and held her arms out in an invitation for a hug. Angel stood and hugged Anna around the chest, whilst Anna hugged Angel around her shoulders . . . and her wings, and gently patted her back. 'Forgive me my dear. Thirty years of being a police inspector has left me a cynical old hag.'

'You have nothing to be forgiven for. You are his mother, you love him. I am a stranger to you, and . . .' She flexed her wings and smiled. '. . . I am strange.' Karl snorted a laugh at that. 'And I now know that I love him, because I now know what love is.'

Anna smiled at the petite alien in front of her. 'When did you last have something to eat and drink? Would you like a sandwich and a cup of coffee?'

Angel nodded. 'Yes, that would be nice.'

Without looking around, Anna spoke. 'Karl, go and fetch some sandwiches and coffee.'

André looked at his father with a smirk. Karl waggled his eyebrows, looked at his wife and then gave André an "OK" gesture with his finger and thumb. It was rare to see his wife in tears, and this young waif had managed it. She was something special this one.

After they had eaten their sandwiches and drank their coffees, Jack gave them a whistle stop tour of the Special Operations Unit. Being Director of Application Development at a successful IT company, Karl marvelled at the technology available to Torchwood. Anna stood in the Despatch Office and observed the agents coordinating responses to operatives in the field. It was truly remarkable.

Eventually, they came to the Standby Room and met the members of Blue Watch, including the Watch Supervisor, Rose Smith, and her husband, John. Anna could see that Rose had been affected by what had happened to her son. 'André speaks very 'ighly of you Mrs. Smith . . . you shouldn't blame yourself for what 'appened.'

'It's Rose, and I have to, I'm the supervisor, and André is a member of this close knit family. If anything happens to one of us, it affects all of us.'

Anna smiled and stroked Rose's cheek. 'I know, I 'ave experience of that myself. But with such a strong and loving family around 'im . . .' She looked around the Standby Room. '. . . I know 'e is in safe 'ands.'

Anna was then introduced to John, and they shook hands. Once again, her ability to read a person failed her. Here was a man whose eyes seemed to be older than his face. And those eyes held secrets . . . lot's of secrets.

She finished shaking John's hand, and was back in the present. She looked over at the bridesmaids. 'You all look lovely. Come on, I'll take you up to Angel's room. I think she needs to see some familiar faces.'

'Ah, a case of wedding jitters,' Alice said with a smile. 'Come on girls, operation "tie the knot" is underway.' They laughed and followed Anna out of the courtyard.

'And I will take you to the Coat-Of-Arms hall, where family and friends are gathering,' André told them.

In one of the medieval themed bedrooms, the Blue Watch Babes found Angel sitting at the dressing table, having her hair styled. When she saw them, she stood and hurried to them to enjoy a group hug.

'Are you all right?' Rose asked her in her role as maid of honour.

'I am now,' Angel replied with a smile, looking at Anna as she explained. 'Anna and Karl have been lovely, so kind and welcoming. And yesterday I got to know André's brother and sisters as we travelled across the water.'

'But there was only André that you really knew,' Alice realised.

'Yes, and today I think there is something wrong, because they won't let me see André.'

Rose smiled and rubbed her arm to comfort her. 'Don't worry Angel, that's just one of the traditions we told you about. It's bad luck to see the groom before the weddin', and also . . .' Rose looked her up and down. 'You are gonna knock his socks off when he sees you in that dress.'

The dress was white silk, with a bodice of individual silk "feathers". It was an off the shoulder design, the same as the bridesmaids dresses, but was lower at the back to accommodate Angels wings. Rose and Julia had taken Angel to Tyler Mansion to meet Jackie's designer, and he had done a fantastic job of realising their ideas.

'So come on girlfriend, let's add the finishin' touches and get you ready for your man.'

The Coat-Of-Arms hall was a large room with a vaulted ceiling which was supported with wooden columns. Chairs were arranged in rows for the guests and an altar had been placed at one end. André was sitting in the front row with his younger brother Jan, who was his best man. Next to them were an empty chair for Anna, then Karl, André's older sister Celine, and finally Nicole, the youngest of them all. John sat behind André and looked along the row, when a thought occurred to him.

'André?' he whispered, leaning forward. 'Who's giving Angel away?'

'Ah, she 'as kept that a closely guarded secret. She wanted it to be a surprise.'

'I wonder who it could be?' John asked.

'My money is on Andy,' André said, referring to Captain McNabb, the head of Special Operations. 'With Jack as a close second.'

As the bridesmaids put the finishing touches to Angels outfit, the same thought occurred to Rose. 'Angel, I forgot to ask you. Who's giving you away today?'

They were surprised when Angel gave them a mischievous smile. 'That, is a secret, and you are going to love it. They will be here soon.'

"They?" Rose thought. Surely she meant "he". Rose put it down to Angel's use of the English language.

There was a knock at the door, and Anna's face peeped around the corner. 'Is everyone ready Rose?'

Rose looked around the room. 'Yep. We're all good here. Just need someone to give the bride away.'

'Ah, I think I can 'elp you with that. I will see you down stairs. Enjoy your day Angel.' Anna's head disappeared, but the door stayed open.

Rose's jaw dropped as a familiar figure walked into the room, holding the hand of a familiar four year old girl dressed as a bridesmaid. 'Dad?! Juleshka?! Wha' . . ? How?'

'Hi there Sweetheart. Angel reckoned she was a bridesmaid short,' Pete Tyler said to his stunned daughter.

Rose looked over to Angel, and Angel smiled. 'When I arrived at Torchwood, your father looked after me. He secured my refugee status, arranged for my identity papers, passport, visa. He gave me guest quarters at the Tower, and even gave me a job in the day care centre. He was a father figure when I needed one, and he will be a father figure today.'

Rose smiled at her father. 'Yeah. He's been one to me too,' she said cryptically as she kissed him on the cheek and hugged him around the neck. She was of course referring to the fact that this universe's Pete Tyler was not her "real" father.

'And you, young lady,' she said, stooping down and picking up her daughter. 'Look beautiful. But how did ya manage to hide all this from me and yer dad?'

'Eyulf said if we imagined that Granny and Grumpy were taking us to Harry Potter Land at the Warner Studios, you and Daddy wouldn't be able to tell the difference between going there and coming here.'

'He's your father's son,' Rose said. 'The crafty little devil.'

['Rose, what's up?'] John thought in her head.

['Hah! Plenty. Are you in for a surprise. Tell André we're on our way.']

'You all right Dad?' a young voice said beside John in the hall. He turned to see the cheeky grin of his son, Eyulf in the chair beside him.

'Eyulf? What . . ? How?'

['Already done that one,'] Rose laughed in his head.

'Ooh, this is posh, innit,' Jackie Tyler said as she led Jason by the hand to the seat next to his brother. 'Close yer mouth John, there's a train comin'.'

John's mouth snapped shut like a Goldfish's. 'But what are you doing here? And where's Pete and Juleshk . . . ah.' He'd worked it out.

André turned to look at them. 'Mrs. Tyler. What a surprise. Thank you for coming. Angel will be delighted.'

'More than y'know lad. And it's Jackie,' she told him.

'But where is Pete?'

'He's a little bit busy at the moment, but he'll be along in a minute,' she explained with a grin.

'So, how did you get here? I mean when?' John asked.

'After you'd dropped the kids off and driven away, Alistair drove us to the airport and we flew over in Pete's airship,' Jackie explained.

John laughed. 'You can take the man out of Torchwood . . .'

Before John could finish the saying, Mendelssohn's Wedding March started playing, and they all looked to the back of the hall.

'Oh wow!' André breathed.

'Wow indeed,' John agreed.

'She looks gorgeous,' Jackie said, reaching in her handbag for a tissue to wipe her eyes.

Pete had a proud smile on his face, and Angel's smile gave her an elfish quality.

Jackie explained why Angel was being led down the aisle by Pete. 'It was one of the times when Angel was havin' her dress fitted. She took me to one side and said she'd been readin' about how the father gives away the bride, and she hadn't got a father. Brought a tear to my eye that did. She wondered if Pete would give her away, but didn't know how to ask him.'

John grinned. 'And of course, he said yes.'

'He was gobsmacked when I told him. He went and gave her a big hug and said she should never be afraid to ask him anythin'. He was burstin' with pride.'

'And still is by the look of him,' John said as they reached the altar. Rose turned to look at her family and gave them her tongue between the teeth smile and a cheeky wink.

The registrar signalled for people to sit, and made her introductions before getting down to the business of the civil marriage declaration. It was the start of another of those special Torchwood family moments which brought everyone closer together.

 **The End**


End file.
